Adeola Folasade Ehigie

In 2013, I won the OWSD Postgraduate Award to pursue a part-time (‘sandwich’) PhD research program at the Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, under the supervision of Prof Xiyun Yan, the Director of the Key Laboratory of Protein and Peptide Pharmaceuticals. As part of the research work leading to the award of a PhD, my work centered on the medicinal plant Momordica charantia (MC) and its effects on selected cancer cell lines (Cervical, Breast and Lung). The cytotoxic effects of some fractions derived from the crude water-soluble extract of MC (Ethylacetate, Dichloromethane, N-hexane, Butanol and aqueous) were established and the mechanism of these effects were elucidated. In contributing to knowledge, our research showed light on the fact that our plant of interest has the ability to kill cancer cell lines and also that the most potent of the fractions tested is the ethylacetate fraction. Also, we confirmed that the mode of death induced by these fractions is non apoptotic though mitochondrial-dependent. A number of Publications have since emanated from the research efforts.