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Connecting Epigenetics and Natural Resources
The 2015-16 GYA North-South Interdisciplinary Grant was awarded to Alexander (Sashsa) Kagansky (UK) and Vidushi Neergheen-Bhujun (Mauritius) for their research proposal: Connecting Epigenetics and Natural Resources: The Road Towards Cancer Management and Biodiversity Conservation.
About the GYA North-South Interdisciplinary Grant
The GYA includes a diverse membership of scientists and scholars, in many disciplines, based in low- and middle-income and high-income countries. This grant scheme was initiated in 2014, aiming to foster collaboration across the lines that often separate researchers and limit possibilities. Specifically, this scheme facilitates the development of small-scale, innovative, curiosity-driven, blue-sky, exploratory research pilots or prototypes that unite researchers in low- and middle-income and high-income countries and cross disciplinary boundaries.
The North-South Interdisciplinary Grant is awarded annually, and is meant to provide seed money to enable GYA members to prepare a proof of concept, prototype, or pilot research project with a view to securing larger external funding.
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Research Aims
In 400 B.C. Hippocrates said, “Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food.” Despite technological and cultural advances, the essence of these words has seen contemporary resurgence through renewed interest in food and their ability to reduce the incidence of chronic diseases. The deliverable summarizing objective of this trans-disciplinary project will thus be to demonstrate how food plants, edible mushrooms and marine invertebrates, traditionally known for their medicinal uses in Mauritius can intercept metabolic networks and epigenetic reactions that promote tumorigenesis. This will thus provide the basis for the conservation of the remaining tropical biodiversity in Mauritius in order to keep researching anti-cancer properties on natural compounds within the increasingly aging and technologically advancing world. In addition, the findings will help to better understand the mechanisms of action in order to predict their respective efficacy thereby validating their medicinal properties.
Research started with this grant continued and has led to the publication:
Rehab I. Yousef, Naglaa F.H. Mahmoud, Fouad I. El-Hosiny, Fritz E. Kühn, Ghada Bassioni,
“Electric and magnetic properties of cobalt, copper and nickel organometallic complexes for molecular wires”,
Ain Shams Engineering Journal, 2021. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2090447920302811)
