Associate Professor Gerald Muench from the School of Medicine, together with EcoBiotics Limited, has been awarded a UWS Research Partnership grant to identify compounds from Australian native tropical rainforest plants for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease and other neuro-inflammatory diseases.Neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s are severely debilitating, and their impact is becoming ever more prominent as our population continues to age. Ecobiotics is the first first company to be given approval to collect native material from Queensland's rainforests under Queensland's Biodiscovery Act (2004), and UWS researchers are excited to be involved in a project of such great importance.
The research team will test a variety of compounds isolated from Australian tropical rainforest plants, particularly from Northern Queensland, for their anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective potential. A number of these plant extracts have already demonstrated these activities in non-Alzheimer related studies, and will now be tested (and further purified) in cell culture models mimicking the inflammatory scenario of Alzheimer's disease.
This important research is representative of a growing capacity at UWS to engage in commercially oriented research. The Innovation team is excited at the bright future for UWS’s new School of Medicine, and we encourage you to watch this space for news on their commercially significant discoveries.
Please click here for the full Research Directions article published by the Office of Research Services at UWS.
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