Moringa Power: Old or New?

Overview

For centuries, man has turned to plants to provide not only sustenance but also medicine. The purpose of this project is to isolate and identify the compound(s) responsible for the antibacterial activity that I identified previously in the Moringa extract. To do this, halo disk assays were performed along with Thin Layer Chromatography. The results from these experiments illustrate that the antibacterial compound in Moringa is a stable compound that can be concentrated successfully and is best extracted using 70% ethanol from seeds and leaves. Many attempts at Thin Layer Chromatography using increasingly more polar solvent systems, as well as the use of 70% ethanol in the initial extraction, indicate that the activity is distinct from those previously described in the literature. The major conclusion, then, is that the results suggest that I have made progress toward isolating a new compound not shown or written about in the current literature. Future studies would focus on not only identifying the currently unknown compound but also creating the derivatives of this compound(s) to create a stronger yet safer antimicrobial.

Competition history

• ISEF 2014 Mathematics · Entry MI069

Resources

• ISEF abstract page ↗

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