During my internship I will work on a project in collaboration between BioCIS laboratory (Laboratoire Pharmacognosie et Substance naturelles, CNRS UMR 8076, Faculté de Pharmacie, Châtenay Malabry), the Faculté de Pharmacie de Paris Descartes (Chimie des Substances Naturelles, Electrochimie UMR CNRS 8638 COMETE) and the Conservatoire National des Plantes à Parfum, Médicinales et Aromatiques de Milly la Forêt. What are the research areas at BioCIS ? In BioCIS laboratory, there is several fields of research: extractive and analytical chemistry to find new active components in different plants and other natural sources (sponges, insects,... ) from Africa, New Caledonia or Guyane. And also synthesis and methodology to synthesis natural products and different analysis (RMN, GC/FID, biologic activity, toxicologic,...) on natural products which can influence the central nervous system or have an antiparasitic action. (1) However, the natural product are more than ever a big part of the medicine world. Indeed, in some poor country they don’t have access to modern drugs and still use knowledge of the elders and wild plants for curing diseases. And even in the western world most of the drugs come from plants or were based on them, as you can see below. (2) Figure 1: The different type of new approved drug between 1981 and 2014 (2) And also more and more people turns to more traditional medicine, full of plants, for their health. So one of the big issues, in this research fields, are to explore the possible toxicity of the plants, the dosage, often unknowns, and the quality control of the natural products.(3) What is the project for which I am going to work ? The conservatory of Milly is a semi-public, professional association who tries to save our natural heritage and make everyone discover the amazing world of useful plants. For example, they select and product seeds for aromatic and medicinal plants cultivation. (4) They have a new project to share the benefit of their plants: to produce essential oil from 6 different plants, lemon balm, hyssop, thyme, sage, everlasting and mint (Melissa officinalis, Hyssopus procumbens L. var. decumbens, Thymus vulgaris L. (CT * thuyanol), Salvia sclarea L., Helichrysum italicum and Mentha x piperita L.). (5) I will write another blog post to describe essentials oils in general and the benefits and toxicity of the essential oil of each of this species. ( * CT = chemotype = “plants that are practically indistinguishable from one another in appearance but are nevertheless unique in their composition and therefore are used to treat distinct diseases”. (6)) For the moment they have tried different crops condition:
Figure 2: Various location of plantation with different conditions of soil, sun,...
What is the goal of this internship ? The aim of my internship is to analyze all the samples with GC/MS and then with GC/FID, to compare them, using a metabolomic approach when needed, to identify each components, to check if it’s relevant with the French and European standard (Pharmacopée, AFNOR ) (7) and to determine which combination of conditions is the best in terms of composition. Sources:
Annex: Timeline of all the project, realized by ADéPAM For the moment, I analyze the essential oil from the 2a) rectangle. I added this timeline thanks to Noémie to give an overview of the project timeline.
9 Comments
Noémie Paillon
13/3/2017 10:00:27 am
Hello Amélie,
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Amélie
14/3/2017 01:03:24 am
Hello Noémie,
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Noémie Paillon
14/3/2017 04:58:12 am
Ok thanks ! But then I have another question: are those oils already commercialised or not yet ?
Amélie
15/3/2017 03:05:50 am
Hello Noémie,
Noémie Paillon
15/3/2017 03:27:41 am
Now everything is clear thank you !! I didn't think it took so long for an essential oil to be commercialised !
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Margaux
14/3/2017 05:05:28 am
Hey Amélie!
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Amélie
15/3/2017 06:10:53 am
Hello Margaux,
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Margaux
16/3/2017 02:09:42 am
Aw, to me "elder wisdom" is important because it's a form of knowledge that we can not accept to lose and that we have to investigate. Your example of essential oils speaks for itself!
Fairouz
8/4/2017 05:08:12 am
Hello Amélie!! I just love essential oils, I hope you are having fun analyzing them!
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