{"id":5596,"date":"2008-09-25T17:37:14","date_gmt":"2008-09-25T17:37:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/?p=5596"},"modified":"2008-09-25T17:37:14","modified_gmt":"2008-09-25T17:37:14","slug":"harmacy-professor-is-berry-berry-excited-about-medicinal-plant-research-at-uri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/2008\/09\/25\/harmacy-professor-is-berry-berry-excited-about-medicinal-plant-research-at-uri\/","title":{"rendered":"Pharmacy professor is berry, berry excited about medicinal plant research at URI"},"content":{"rendered":"
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IN THE WILD BERRY PATCH: Navindra Seeram, URI assistant professor of pharmacy, examines some dogwood berries that are native to the Kingston Campus. URI Department of Communications and Marketing photo by Nora Lewis.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Playing role in returning College of Pharmacy to prominence as plant natural products research center<\/h3>\n

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 September 25, 2008 \u2013 He\u2019s been here less than a year, but Navindra Seeram<\/a> is already putting the University of Rhode Island\u2019s College of Pharmacy back in the spotlight for its research on plants, including the health benefits of medicinal foods such as fruits and vegetables.
\nThe assistant professor of pharmacy has been recently selected the editor of the Clinical Pharmacognosy Series, a new CRC Press (Taylor and Francis) book series that will delve into uses and benefits of natural products in clinical pharmacy practice. \u201cThere is much need for a book series targeting the clinical study of natural products, and I started working with the publishers on this project about four years ago\u201d.
\nThe Clinical Pharmacognosy Series will address the fusion of classical pharmacognosy with modern chemical and biological approaches, along with their applications in clinical settings. Each volume in the series will run about 500 pages. The scientific, peer-reviewed books in the series will address issues such as infectious diseases, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, obesity, diabetes, aging, and \u201cwe\u2019ll add more as the scientific evidence grows,\u201d Seeram said.
\nIn addition Seeram has been featured in the April 2008 edition of a popular trade magazine, Nutritional Outlook, in a story titled, \u201cSuperfoods Help Heart Health,\u201d and the magazine\u2019s September issue in a story about consuming \u201cSuperfruits\u201d like pomegranate to improve joint health. He was also quoted in the January 2008 edition of Oncology News International in a story titled \u201cBlack raspberries show promise in human trials.\u201d
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GATHERING DOGWOOD BERRIES: Navindra Seeram, URI assistant professor of pharmacy, left, examines some dogwood berries he and Dinorah Jean-Gilles, center, a URI pharmacy graduate student, and Liya Li, a post-doctoral fellow, picked on the Kingston Campus. Seeram\u2019s research team is the first to examine the potential health benefits of the dogwood berry, which is a native Rhode Island berry. URI Department of Communications and Marketing photo by Nora Lewis.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nSeeram, who was hired last January by the College of Pharmacy, said he responds to many media and publishing requests to get the word out about the importance of medicinal foods, particularly berries, in enhancing human health.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s not only important to do good science, but you also have to tell the story,\u201d Seeram said. \u201cAs scientists, we are obligated to discuss our research in a way that the mass audience can understand. However, we need to communicate the science responsibly. I take time out of my busy schedule to talk with the popular press because the average person is not reading about our work in scholarly journals.\u201d
\nSeeram also wants to play a role in restoring the College to its prominence as a center of research in medicinal plant research, a hallmark of the College from the 1950s.
\nSince his arrival, Seeram has established a research partnership with City of Hope Hospital outside of Los Angeles, which is an independent biomedical research, treatment and education center dedicated to preventing and curing cancer and other life-threatening diseases. It is one of only 40 National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers nationwide and a founding member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network.
\nIn addition, Seeram wants to make the University a regular home for national conferences on natural products research. In the past, the University hosted two annual meetings of the prestigious American Society of Pharmacognosy, and three of the College\u2019s faculty members, the late Heber Youngken Jr., the first dean of the pharmacy college, Yuzuru Shimizu, professor emeritus of pharmacy and Roy Okuda, a former URI professor now at San Diego State University, served at various times as the organization\u2019s presidents.<\/p>\n
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Focusing on the medicinal properties of berries and other fruits and vegetables comes as nations around the world deal with increasing rates of obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease and other life-threatening illnesses.
\n\u201cAt URI, and other laboratories around the world, we are interested in compounds that make the blueberry blue and the strawberry red,\u201d Seeram said. \u201cBecause plants are rooted and can\u2019t escape the effects of the sun, dangers of predators and other threats, they have developed bioactive compounds such as pigments that we have found are natural antioxidants,\u201d Seeram said. \u201cColors in plants protect them from solar irradiation. These are the anti-cancer agents we are paying attention to.
\n\u201cSo, go ahead and snack on those strawberries, raspberries or blueberries because they taste good, but you are also doing yourself a healthy favor,\u201d Seeram said.
\n\u201cIn tropical Africa, 50,000 years ago, humans walked all over the place and ate more than 800 varieties of foods that provided them with more than 25,000 phytochemicals (beneficial plant compounds) that kept them healthy. Today, we don\u2019t walk anymore and we eat loads of processed foods,\u201d the researcher said. \u201cFewer than 25 percent of Americans eat five servings of fruits and vegetables a day and the negative health effects can be seen everywhere.\u201d
\nTo call attention to the bounty of berry fruits all around us, Seeram and his team of researchers and students have been collecting native New England berry fruits on campus and at other sites. \u201cWe are looking at native berries that have never been researched,\u201d he said.
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(Lavender berries)American beautyberry<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nAmong some of the varieties found on campus are dogwood berries, huckleberries, blueberries, American beautyberry, and not far away at the coast, the beach plum.
\nFocusing on such fruits is important, Seeram said, because the nutraceutical and medicinal plant industry will become a $600 billion business by 2010. Such growth is also important for pharmacists and the reason why he teaches a course in medicinal plants to the doctor of pharmacy students.\u201cPharmacies experienced an increase of 45 percent in sales of herbal supplements in the 1990s and it is estimated that almost 19 percent of persons using prescription medications also use herbal products,\u201d Seeram said. \u201cThe modern-day pharmacist is constantly challenged to counsel consumers, patients, and also other health care professionals, on various aspects pertaining to natural products.\u201d
\nThe professor said much of this growth is arising out of America\u2019s changing demographics related to immigrants from Southeast Asia and other eastern cultures with long traditions of using natural products to treat and prevent illness.
\nHe said many of the compounds he is studying prevent disease. \u201cPrevention is always better than the cure, because once you are involved with the cure, you already have the disease,\u201d he said. \u201cTwo-thirds of our health is out of our control because of genetic and environmental influences, but one-third is our control through our choices relating to diet and exercise.\u201d
\nMedia Contact: Dave Lavallee<\/a>, 401-874-5862<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Playing role in returning College of Pharmacy to prominence as plant natural products research center KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 September 25, 2008 \u2013 He\u2019s been here less than a year, but Navindra Seeram is already putting the University of Rhode Island\u2019s College of Pharmacy back in the spotlight for its research on plants, including the health […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":639,"featured_media":5597,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[161,173,260,35,77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-bps","category-news-people-seeram","category-news-research-natural-products","category-news","category-news-research"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/639"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}