About the Biological Activity

This core unit of VFIC functions towards understanding health benefits of bioactive/phytonutrients of vegetable, fruits and nuts.This facility has instruments required for biochemical analysis for understanding mechanism of action of bioactive compounds and/or fruit or vegetable extracts. Some of the instruments include, multi-well plate reader, cell counter, double beam spectrophotometer, nanodrop spectrophotometer, RT (reverse transcriptase) PCR, Western blotting unit.

Research

Research is focused on screening extracts and isolated compounds of fruits and vegetables such as citrus, carrot, pepper for inhibitory ability of human colon, breast, pancreatic and prostate cancer. We are also conducting studies to understand the mechanism of action of these pure compounds to induce apoptosis in cultured cancer cells. Rresearch is in progress elucidating mechanisms of preventing oxidative stress induced by various heavy metals.

Research on in vitro bioavailability of fruits and vegetables is also studied. Role of citrus phytochemicals in quorum sensing of microbes is studied using non-pathogenic organisms.