Simone MOSER, Univ.-Prof. Dr. Full Professor, Head of Pharmacognosy
Contact: Institute of Pharmacy/Pharmacognosy University of Innsbruck Center for Chemistry and Biomedicine Innrain 80 - 82/IV Room: L.04.013 6020 Innsbruck / Austria
The degradation of the green plant pigment chlorophyll is a phenomenon that results in the beautiful colors observed in autumn and is also visible during fruit ripening. The metabolites that are yielded from the breakdown path – the phyllobilins – represent a surprisingly little explored class of natural products despite the facts that they are (i) ubiquitous in nature and (ii) part of human nutrition. Exploratory studies have pointed towards interesting properties of phyllobilins, e.g. they were shown to have antioxidant properties. Our aim is to investigate the physiological roles of phyllobilins as components of human nutrition in the prevention and treatment of cancer.