Ongoing Projects

Summary:

Diabetes mellitus is a multifaceted chronic disease, which requires continues medical care reducing the patient’s quality. According to the World Health Organization, diabetes has entered the top 10 leading causes of deaths worldwide, following a significant percentage increase of 70% from 2000 to 2030. Recent study reported that over of 54% of registered drugs for diabetes are natural products or mimic natural products. Furthermore, several works described the antidiabetic activity of a plethora of natural products and their constituents. Cyprus Island can be considered as a promising geographical area for drug discovery from natural resources due to (i) its high biodiversity, (ii) its flora is unexplored and (iii) rich tradition in herbal medicines. Thus, the development of integrated technologies to evaluate the antidiabetic potency of plants is stands a challenging perspective. The main objective of this project is to develop analytical techniques to study the antidiabetic potency of Cypriot flora. This integrated approach combines chemical characterization, bioactivity assays and in silico methods to evaluate Cypriot natural products and discover novel antidiabetic compounds. The implementation of project is going to build a knowledge base for antidiabetic properties of indigenous plants material. Furthermore, a panel of pure phytocompounds and /or fractions with antidiabetic potential will be delivered. Therefore, new knowledge will be acquired for the bioactivity of compounds that can be utilized for the production of antidiabetic agents for pharmaceutical and food industry.