I was wondering if the compound that influenced cell death was part of the drug capsule that the ginseng came in and if a pure ginseng puree would work better.
We used a powdered extract of ginseng and dissolved it in as a powder in ethanol not in pill form, so there shouldn’t have been any capsule compounds. Thanks for the thought though! its possible that there is some other unknown chemical in it that we don’t know about.
Did you look into the conditions where the ginseng was used in traditional medicines? Is it possible it does inhibit some bacterial growth but maybe for a different kind of bacteria or under different conditions?
Great question I hadn’t thought about that! In the past it has been eaten raw or brewed as a tea, but as of recently it has been used similar to a vitamin, with powdered extract in a capsule. It could be that brewing it in tea yields the best results, in which case raising the extracts temperature may be helpful for us. But I think most likely the results weren’t affected by our preparation of it, as people see beneficial results from taking the extract pills which is essentially what we used..
It could be! There is research (cited on my poster) that indicates it could act as an antimicrobial, but the only way to know for sure is to identify the individual molecules in the red ginseng and see if any look like they could be promising antibiotics.
I was wondering if the compound that influenced cell death was part of the drug capsule that the ginseng came in and if a pure ginseng puree would work better.
We used a powdered extract of ginseng and dissolved it in as a powder in ethanol not in pill form, so there shouldn’t have been any capsule compounds. Thanks for the thought though! its possible that there is some other unknown chemical in it that we don’t know about.
Did you look into the conditions where the ginseng was used in traditional medicines? Is it possible it does inhibit some bacterial growth but maybe for a different kind of bacteria or under different conditions?
Great question I hadn’t thought about that! In the past it has been eaten raw or brewed as a tea, but as of recently it has been used similar to a vitamin, with powdered extract in a capsule. It could be that brewing it in tea yields the best results, in which case raising the extracts temperature may be helpful for us. But I think most likely the results weren’t affected by our preparation of it, as people see beneficial results from taking the extract pills which is essentially what we used..
Wondering if ginseng just isn’t a great antibiotic. I’ve heard it has many other benefits though
It could be! There is research (cited on my poster) that indicates it could act as an antimicrobial, but the only way to know for sure is to identify the individual molecules in the red ginseng and see if any look like they could be promising antibiotics.
Wondering if ginseng just isn’t a great antibiotic. I have heard it has other health benefits though
How could you identify and isolate the compounds that might have antibacterial properties?