Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 30: In a major achievement, a scientist of SKUAST Jammu, Dr Vikas Sharma successfully isolated an active ingredient from the fruit part of “Carissa carandas” popularly known as “karonda”, that possesses significant in vitro cytotoxic effect against breast, colon and lung cancer cells.
While working on the anticancer potential of minor fruits, Dr Sharma along with his Ph D scholar Navneet Kour and CSIR-IIIM, Jammu, yielded very interesting and significant consensus from medicinal view point as the pure molecule isolated during the investigation demonstrates cytotoxic effect by inhibiting cell proliferation and promoting apoptosis in lung (A-549) carcinoma cell line.
Dr Vikas Sharma informed that wild variety of Karonda fruit was collected from Regional Research Station for Subtropical Fruits, Raya, SKUAST-Jammu, crushed into powdered form, extracted and then treated with human cancer cell lines originated from various tissues. He said that the active ingredient that happens to be a triterpenoid, have the potential to serve as candidate drug for cancer therapy and may very well be exploited through chemical means, for cancer treatment to provide a great promise and service to patients with lung carcinoma. The paper regarding the research work has recently been published in high IF in one of the leading journals of Taylor & Francis, England.
Dr Vikas informed that cancer cases are on rise in Jammu and Kashmir with lung cancer becoming most prominent due to smoking. The summer capital Srinagar tops the number followed by Jammu and Ladakh, but most of the drugs used in cancer chemotherapy exhibit cell toxicity and can induce genotoxic, carcinogenic and teratogenic effects in non tumor cells. Therefore, the research for alternative drugs of natural origin, which are less toxic, endowed with fewer side effects and more potent in their mechanism of action, is an important research line, he added.
Dr Vikas stressed that the people of Jammu should encourage the consumption of Karonda so as to avoid the risk of cancer and regular consumption of this minor fruit is associated with reduced risk of lung cancer as additive / synergistic effects of phytochemicals are responsible for the potent anticancer effects.
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