Discipline: Biological Sciences
Subcategory: Plant Research
Baraka Gathere - Bowie State University
Co-Author(s): Baraka Gathere 1 , Anne Osano 1 , and Devanand Luthria (Dave) 2 1- Department of Natural Sciences ; Bowie State University,MD 2-) Food Composition and Methods Development Laboratory Chemistry, Beltsville, MD
Azadirachta indica, also known as Neem tree and traditionally called ‘nature’s drug store’ makes part of several African pharmacopeias and is widely used for the preparation of homemade remedies and commercial preparations against various illnesses, including malaria. Plants are a tremendous source for the discovery of new products of medicinal value for drug development. Today, several distinct chemicals derived from plants are important drugs in use across the world. Since the biological compounds are largely affected by the genotype and environmental conditions or interaction of the two, we hypothesize that Kenyan (tropical) variety of A. indicamight have different metabolite diversity from the Asian/Indian variety which have been studied. The goal of this research was to study the similarities and/or differences between the Neem varieties grown in different ecological zones in Kenya. Near Infra-red (NIR) analysis was used in this study and our results show that there is a difference between Neem varieties from different ecological zones.
Not SubmittedFunder Acknowledgement(s): The National Science Foundation
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Anne Osano, aosano@bowiestate.edu
Role: I prepared the samples for Near Infrared (NIR) spectroscopy. After entering all the samples through spectroscopy, I compiled all the data and gave it to my advisor, Dr Luthria, for analysis.