S5: Episode 2: Ahmed Darwish - Metabolizing Horticulture

Dr. Ahmed Darwish is an Assistant Professor of plant secondary metabolism at the Department of Horticultural Sciences, Texas A&M University. He also serves as a member of the TAMU Faculty Advisory Council (FAC). He received his Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry from Hiroshima University, Japan, in 2015. He has excellent experience in isolating, characterizing, and testing phytochemicals from natural sources like plants, fungi, bacteria, insects, and other organisms using different techniques, such as HPLC, GC-MS, LC-MS/MS, and NMR. 
Furthermore, he has excellent experience in determining the potential health effects of different types of compounds, such as anticancer, antioxidant, antidiabetic, etc. He also generated an accessible database of metabolomic profiles related to numerous traits using several southern grape populations, blueberries, blackberries, and Kiwi. His program aims to contribute to global health by providing resilient crops that not only support sustainable agriculture but also offer significant health benefits to humans. He has been teaching and instructing many courses (up to 10 years) related to plant Biochemistry and secondary metabolism, developing new course materials for undergraduate and graduate students, and participating in different faculty committees. He has effectively collaborated as a Co-PI with different national/international universities and federal institutions to secure more than $1.5 million in research funding. Dr. Darwish has published more than 45 peer-reviewed publications in high-ranked scientific journals and served as a reviewer in several international journals.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Halladi, welcome to Horticulture Innovators, the podcast series where we will explore impactful innovations in horticulture. I'm Ahmed Dingra, your host, and I'm a professor and head of the Department of Horticultural Sciences at Texas M University. In each episode, we'll explore the inspiring stories of the pioneers who are contributing to sustainability, wellness, and food security through their amazing work in horticulture. How are you? Welcome to this episode of Horticulture Innovators. Today we have with us uh Dr. Darvish. Welcome.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Thank you, Dr. Ahmed, for inviting me and having me here in your uh podcast. So yeah. Wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

We're really uh glad you're here. And uh as as a as a new faculty here in in what's your area that you're researching?

SPEAKER_01 1:05

So I am when I get hired here, I'm working on plant secondary metabolism, so an horticulture crop. Okay, so doing a lot of uh work related to human health and well-being, and trying to identify different secondary metabolites, which is um good for human health. So we have many different crops we are working on right now, working on blueberries, kiwi, blackberries, even uh dewberries.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Wonderful, wonderful. So uh you you said a few things which are really important. Uh you said secondary metabetabolites, and then also you talked about dewberries and health. So I'm gonna actually go after all these three tangents.

SPEAKER_03 1:47

Of course.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

So if there are secondary metabolites, there's probably primary and tertiary.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Are there quaternary metabolites as well?

SPEAKER_01 1:56

No, we have so we're focusing on mainly on primary metabolites and secondary metabolites.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

So if if somebody out there is listening, what what are primary metabolites and what are secondary metabolites?

SPEAKER_01 2:09

Okay, so for primary metabolites, it is the main metabolite which is important for any plants to survive. Like proteins, carbohydrates, fats, lipids, all this kind of uh primary metabolites.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Is sugar a primary metabolite? Yes, sugar. Carbohydrate would be the same.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Of course, because sugar is under carbohydrate uh category. So any plant cannot survive without primary metabolites. Secondary metabolites also play a very important role in the plant growth and development. So we're here we are talking about different phenolics, flavonoids, telbins, some glucose. Or something like these pigments would be so in the flowers. Oh all this kind of colors that you as you can see here, all these anxioanines, which is a part of secondary metabolites. Okay, okay. All the smell what you are smelling right now, aroma, volatiles. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

This is all under the So when we smell a rose, I'm actually inhaling secondary metabolism. Exactly. Well, that's pretty cool actually. So that's why I just wanted to make sure that people connect the dots that we're talking about the same thing. Well, the reason I brought up sugar, because I think the general population understands that plants capture carbon and they c and they by utilizing light, they convert light energy into chemical energy, which then helps convert carbon into carbohydrates, which could be starches and sugars, which we find in our potatoes or in our fruits, right? Yes. So that's what I was trying to understand. Uh trying to walk through together that secondary metabolites. So how important are secondary metabolites?

SPEAKER_01 3:44

Secondary metabolites are very, very important for.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

Of course, we will have no rose without a smell. But there are roses without aroma.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Yes, still we have a lot of plants without aroma. We have a lot of flowers without aroma. We have a lot of plants without taste, even. But still, secondary metabolites play.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Just like tomatoes that we get on the shelf sometimes, they have no taste anymore.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

They have no taste anymore because there's a lot of factors effect on the taste and aroma of tomato right now on the marketing. So, but secondary metabolites is very important to study secondary metabolite. Why? For many reasons. If you are interested in developing new horticulture crops, new crops resilient to abiotic and antibiotic stress, for sure you need to focus on secondary metabolites.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

So just as an explanation, the abiotic and biotic. Biotic would be all like uh bugs and fungi, etc. Exactly. And abiotic will be environmental.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

Environment temperature, UV, uh, heat stress, drought stress, all this kind of uh stresses.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Because our audience is general public, so I'm just trying to break it down. Yeah, along with you.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Yes, of course. So how the blend responds to all these stresses, they are responsive by secondary metabolites during a process called signal transduction. So for us as a human being, when you touch anything hot, hot plate, by your finger, you just go like that. The blend also doing that by producing specific secondary metabolites, especially phenolics, flavonoids, this kind of uh secondary metabolites.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Well that's great, and I think the big part you said about health and well-being, that's why part of our system our sort of department's mission, you know, strategic direction includes wellness because it does talk about uh consuming healthy foods.

SPEAKER_03 5:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Uh and healthy foods, health products in plants are secondary metabolites. Exactly. And similarly, when you interact with plants, color perception or aroma also benefits us uh our mental well-being. So I think interaction with plants and consuming fruits, vegetables, nuts, chocolate, coffee, tea, exactly. It makes you healthier. And it also helps you build a community, uh, wine included in that, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:03

Of course. So when we are talking about secondary metabolites for human health, yeah. So as we know, how they discovered the drugs. Oh, how they discovered so it started from a lot of long time ago when the when they start working on medicinal plants. Why how the name comes to this plant, how we call these plants medicinal plants. Because when we tried these plants to, for example, for uh skin inhalation, something injuries, for something for stomach disorder, for liver, for kidney. So they found there is a lot of plants that can help with that. So that's why we call these plants herbs or herb medicinal plants. And when we go in deep uh in that, we found that some phenolics, some phalavonoids, for example, in coffee, in blueberry, in uh become, for sure. There is a lot of phytoalexens. But all these phytoalexens are working very well as antioxidant compounds and also as anti-cancer compounds, anti-inflammation compounds. So most of these compounds we start working on the uh uh uh on this kind of uh categories, and we found a lot of other deliri derivatives from this main compound which work as anti-cancer, anti-anti uh diabetic anti-obesity. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

As you were saying these things, two two uh examples come to mind. One is salicylic acid.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Oh yes.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Uh uh or or I think uh maybe I'm saying it wrong, but the aspirin that is made for heavy. Salic acid, yes. Yeah, salicylic acid, and then the second was quin, which is obviously for malaria. Exactly. So these are obviously directly coming from plants which were really helping with with aches in first case, and then uh the second one would be of course for uh malarial issues. So yeah, it's fascinating. Uh you know, one wonders uh if you go back to different cultures around the world, exactly. It's they've been utilizing medicinal plants for many, many years. But uh medicinal plants are also part of horticulture because they're they are very high value crops and uh you know they are important and they've been part of like all of us go to uh sort of uh you know, Starbucks sells this um curcamine, huh?

SPEAKER_03 8:33

Yeah, yes, curcamine shot.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

With turmeric and turmeric, and also they they call it the medicinal tea where they add all these things to cloves and everything. So people have been using in cultures, different cultures, this thing. Um, but do we know all the secondary metabolites that are in the we're still working, we're still discovering every day.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

That's why uh a part of our program here to isolate, characterize different secondary metabolites and different horticulture crops. Yeah, so one of uh our project right now on blueberry, we are working on different uh cultivars of blueberry at different developmental stages because we don't know which stage is good for health. And from our study and from all the work what uh uh we did before on muscadine grape, for example, on strawberry, we found that early stage for all horticulture crops giving high antioxidant effect, high anti-cancer effect compared to the ripening stage, which is unfortunate.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

So well does is it true for all fruits or just some of the most of the fruit, which is makes sense because you know the first stage for uh any plant, any fruit need more uh high antioxidant protection. As a protection against biotic antibiotic stress. So which makes sense. So that's why we found in fruit set, for example, for moscadine, for blueberry, for strawberry, giving us in the lab in vitro high antioxidant activity compared to the ripening stage.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

So are you saying we should be eating everything unripe?

SPEAKER_01 10:16

No. Uh I'm I can I can't say that because most of the customers they will not like the taste because it's not tasty. Yeah, I mean, the sugar level is very low. So, but we can do something else.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Well, don't the secondary metabolites that are present, I mean if you're looking only at antioxidants, but as you go, there are so many different types of compounds which are related to health. And also, would you agree that not uh, you know, in in in pharmaceutical industry they will synthesize those compounds individually, mass produce them, but sometimes you need other compounds that are produced by the plant along with that main ingredient, which increase its efficacy or uptake, which may not be present if you're just taking that product alone. Is that is that true?

SPEAKER_01 11:02

Yes, is that true? Uh but let's go back when I talked about the fruit set and you asked me, do we need to eat the the early the unripe stages? No, we can eat it, but in different ways by developing functional foods. So we can talk this unripe fruits and we can freeze-dry them, grind them, and adding them to any kind of cookies.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

You know, that way, because a lot of fruit is, for example, when you grow grapes, people like to thin. I think a lot of people don't realize that uh when apples are being produced or pears, there is something called as thinning, fruit thinning. Because customers is are looking for a regular size, larger size fruit. So you're saying that if we could combine this, this is a really cool idea, where you can take the unripe fruit and utilize it as an additional source of income towards the health part while you enjoy your ripe apple or a ripe uh uh, you know, um like peach. But in the meantime, what what the farmer is picking up, because I think uh our colleague Dr. Borisado is using utilizing those green grapes to produce verjou, for example. Verjou, yes. So I know that happens in grapes. It's happened for many, I mean it's been happening in Europe for a long time.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Yes, even for blueberry. Yeah. There's some countries now using the unripe blueberries, and they grind them and adding them to meat. Oh, okay. When you are cooking your meat, when you are doing your steak. So it adds a little bit more acidity. Yes, exactly. Flavor. Yes. You can make a coat for the steak. Oh, yeah, yeah. And you can uh get a lot of uh beneficial uh compounds. Will it work for sugar? Yes. Oh, that's great.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

That's great. Uh that's uh you you said something earlier as well. So one thing people don't realize that plants produce all these compounds to s protect themselves.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

And so is there an impact of the terroir? We we understand terroir in terms of grapes, which is basically your soil and your immediate environment. But that's true for medicinal plants as well, because if they're if they are not exposed to the right conditions, and I think one of the examples are artemisin uh production, which if if the plant is growing happy, it doesn't produce artemisin.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

Yes, that's why we have now something uh one of my students is working on how to utilize stressed plant for human health. Okay. So we can put the plant under certain stresses, for example, UV light, uh heat stress, drought stress, salinity, to push the plant to produce more phenolic compound, which is good for health.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

And when it ripens, it might still have a lot of that compound left to really then instead of taking it on ripe, you could also take it to ripeness completely. Yes. So, in a way, all the extreme weather conditions we are seeing in production, which it might not hurt in the long run, although if it happens at the wrong time, it can destroy the crop. So that's the challenge. Yeah, exactly. But if it survives all of that, we might be getting healthier foods out of this.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Oh of course, that's why when we got the samples from Muscadine creep, for example, from Florida, and we got some samples from uh Texas in our horse track here in the Department of Horticulture sites. So we found significant difference between phenolic content and the phylavonoid content compared to the one which is growing in Florida, in Georgia, for example.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

So Texas is unique because we have uh 11 growing regions and we have 1300 soil types. So we could really produce things which are healthier as well. Yes. Uh you you mentioned earlier about you're still discovering these secondary metabolites. What's been the sort of I mean, if you look at liter old literature from other cultures around the world, they have talked about active ingredient and all compounds. If you eat this particular, like I I know the analogies are sort of old but also defunct, but sometimes they say that if you eat, for example, uh uh a walnut, right? It's good for your brains, but now we've found compounds in walnuts and pecans which are really good for your metabolism and and brain function. So how how wha what's been the sort of the limitation in discovering these compounds so far?

SPEAKER_01 15:22

So the limitation, uh I got one question a few weeks ago. Someone he told me, you keep saying that you berry is good for health, but how many fruits I have to eat to reach to this the health effect. I told him it's not uh it was the issue of how much you are eating, but how much you are eating every day. For example, if you are eating five berries from blueberry every day or whatever in whatever you are eating, we you're gonna reach by the end of the week for the minimum requirements, for example, for minerals, for antioxidant and anti-cancer compound. So it's not a matter how much you are eating every day. No, it's for a long term. So if you are looking for a protection against any kind of chronic disease, you have to make this as a lifestyle, yeah, horticulture for lifestyle.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Yeah, if you have horticulture, you don't need any other other culture. Yes. I totally agree. But I think that's the challenge. I think today's uh instant gratification world, we just want to take that painkiller and say, pshap, I want to get rid of the pain. But I think the the concept of food uh as a for health is not new, but it hasn't been utilized. Of course, we have a whole vegetable fruit improvement center which kind of pioneered the food for health concept.

SPEAKER_03 16:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

And uh Dr. Pardil is the director of that in our department, he's a professor, and he and that and he leads that, and you know, he's been supporting a lot of research through which, you know, earlier I said tomatoes don't taste, but our colleagues in the department are Dr. Carlos Avila and Dr. Kevin Crosby. They are they're breeding tomatoes, which are tastier. They are also breeding peppers that are healthier.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

Uh so it's kind of interesting that we've we used to think of food as food for health, foods as a healthy product as well, where you consume them as part of a diet, and then we kind of switched to like I need some quick, something quick, but not think about health. But I think we are going back to that. Just like uh we looked at uh uh, you know, does the f does the piece of fruit look perfect to now thinking about flavor? Like roses for the longest time. I think we've all evolved to smell a rose, but now there's no fragrance in them. Not all of them. There are several roses that do. Yes. In fact, we have one of the public building programs in roses. Exactly. Uh, Dr. Oscar and some of the roses he's developing, they're not just like spectacular to look at, they have aroma as well. So dewberry, what is a dewberry? You mentioned earlier dewberry, and it's is it a is it like uh is it like a blueberry?

SPEAKER_01 18:09

No, it is not like a blueberry, it is similar to blackberries. Blackberries, okay. Yes, yes. Also they're in the rose family. They're in the rose family. Rose family, and it's wild and it's growing very well under Texas conditions. Oh, okay. So I discovered that when I joined here in 2024, I was walking outside behind the building and I found a plant similar to blackberries and producing the same kind of Antosarines pigments. Yes. I picked one and I tasted. It is not like uh blackberry for sure, because uh sugar level is lower than uh blackberries, but still when we when we brought some samples to the lab and we extracted them and we tested them for antioxidant activity, total phenolic, total phylavonoid, we found almost the same blackberries. The only difference the taste.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Size. Should we call it Texas berry? Yes, we are trying to do that.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

Okay. Because the good thing for dewberry is you can cover the short uh shortage in uh blackberry production. Yeah. So for example, blackberry, you found blackberry in market here in Texas almost around May, June. But the good thing for dewberry is growing and start to be ripe by March. So we can cover Marsh April using uh dewberry.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

So actually that's a great option for our farmers because part of our land grant mission is to make sure their economic uh bottom line is better.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

Yes, and the bisous very resistant to biotic and abiotic stresses.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Which we explained previously.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

Um so if you're joining just now, you've got to listen to the first part what are biotic and abiotic stresses. So you talked about eating blueberries for a week, and you know, there's another connection that is emerging right now, and I think you work on that as well, is the microbiome, the gut microbiome. Because what we consume impacts our microbiome. And more and more research is showing that microbiome is connected with, of course, our brain function, but also just overall well-being. It impacts your sleep and everything. So it's almost like we have a sort of a second brain in our guts. I'm not a uh brain scientist, so I'm not claiming to know this stuff, but this is what how it is uh sort of projected in public media. So could you we're not going to discuss that, but how does consuming this change the gut microbiome? And does it first of all does it do any imp anything?

SPEAKER_01 20:49

Exactly, because we are what we eat. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

Right? So I heard we are what we digest. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

Now I think now it's better to to say that. Yeah. Because what we found is that the all what we are eating every day, it's working on uh the medialation of gut microbiome. So if you maintain your gut microbiome in good balance, so for sure you will not even feel stress. You will not uh some people uh last uh research uh has been published about uh anxiety. So anxiety comes specifically from gut microbiome. Oh wow, yes. So for example, if you are eating something uh levy greens every day, you are eating enough fibers uh every day, uh uh eating enough horticulture crop with uh high uh nutritional value, uh phenolics, phylavanoids, uh stelbin, for sure it will optimize and mediulate your gut microbiome in a good way. And you can feel it after long After a long time, for example for one week if you are uh you if you have a li like uh lifestyle eating levy greens, you will feel that you don't have anxiety. Yeah, you don't have uh a kind of stress. Also for coffee. So for example imagine if you didn't drink your cup of coffee this morning. How you feel?

SPEAKER_00 22:26

I feel relaxed actually. So is the awake for sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Yeah, maybe a little bit and your heart beats. You will you will feel this change. Why? Because the caffeine what you are eating, you what you are drinking every day with coffee, it helps with stress relief, pain relief. So it's the same thing. But too much is bad because I've heard people have had heart palpitations. One to two cups every day is enough for you.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

Okay, okay. Yes, yeah, just because you know. Well, that's great. Um so the microbiome, I mean, I was listening to some um, you know, I was reading another report on this. How um people who are on the autism spectrum controlling diet can change their outcomes as well. And it's actually it's one of the high school teachers was telling me this as well. Sort of like so what we consume in horticultural crops are really good because they are not only providing calories, unlike row crops, but also providing a lot of nutrition and different types of nutrition.

SPEAKER_03 23:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

And so it's basically going and feeding the microbiome as well.

SPEAKER_03 23:34

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

And and kind of giving you all the uh minerals and vitamins and nutrients that you need. Um, so that's really fascinating. I'm gonna ask you something else now. It's really cool that you're working in this secondary metabolism. And if I were to just summarize, you know, you you're an assistant professor of making sure that we understand how foods impact, horticulture crops impact our health. But how did you get interested in this?

SPEAKER_01 24:00

Okay, so I think this is comes from a long journey. Yeah. So this journey starts from Egypt. Oh, okay. And actually, yes.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

And many more things, of course. Very ancient culture, yes.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Yes. Um and brought me here to Texas ENM. So I came from a big family, agriculture family.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

Okay. So what were you fam? What was your family growing?

SPEAKER_01 24:26

Okay, so my family, we have a big farm in Egypt. We have a lot of mangoes, we have apples, we have peers.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

Mangoes and apples together? Yes. Wow, because one is a temperate crop and the other is tropical. How does that happen together?

SPEAKER_01 24:39

That's where we have different cultivar which is growing very well in Egypt. And we have pomegranate, and we have a lot. You know, Egypt. Yes. It's a good soil for most of the horticulture crops. So my father, he was um a professor as a department head of crop science department in Egypt. Okay. Also, my mother, she was uh agriculture economics, she was a professor, and I have three one brother and two sisters. One she is working on plant genomics, okay, and she's a system professor, and the other one she is assistant professor too, working on plant crop. And my little brother, he is a social professor right now, and he is in the plant protection department. So it's all in the family, huh? Yes, so agriculture is just runs in our blood. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So and I discovered that I have the passion to work with horticulture when we started our farm. So I was 12 years old, and uh you remember my father, he used to push me to go with him to the farm two days per week to take care of plants, to care of animals, all what we have. So as you can see, this family and growing in this family shaped who I am right now.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

So you grew up there and then uh where did your college and what did you study in your yes?

SPEAKER_01 26:04

For the educational journey, I got my bachelor and my master in agriculture science from Egypt. Then I got a scholarship uh from Hiroshima University, Japan. I did my PhD. I was uh working on developing plant-based anti-cancer compounds. Oh, okay. So, yes, we discovered uh 23 compounds, different compounds from different medicinal plants, three out of the 23 compounds new compounds, and we're still working on these compounds right now.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

Then you know, you you've mentioned this a few times. Sorry, I'll just take a little segue here. You said that these plants have anti-cancer compounds. How do you test for that?

SPEAKER_01 26:46

Okay, so after we extract, isolate different uh fractions from the plant.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

So let's say I have a rose here. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

No, for example, for the roses, we take the petals, yes. Or the tissue, what you are targeting. Yeah, yeah. And we dry them. We have many different dry them, okay. Yes, we have many different. We have liquid nitrogen, freeze drying, we have uh air drying, we have oven drying. Depend on which compounds you are targeting. Because some compounds are very sensitive to heat.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

You're trying to catch them in their native state. Exactly. Or something that can be preserved, okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

Yeah, and most of the compounds are sensitive to heat, to light, so you need to be careful about that. After we dry them, we extract them with different uh solvents like methanol, ethanol, etc.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

Some of these will not dissolve in water because these are organic compounds. Exactly. Most of them are organic. Most of them are organic. So then the organic compounds require uh sort of a high polarity solvent. Well, I mean, I'm just trying to make sure that uh my audience understands is you will take an organic compound, it will only dissolve in ethanol or methanol.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 27:58

Um, you know, so that it can really Yes, because there is a science behind that.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

Yes, yes, yes. Most of the active compounds, they are polar compounds.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Polar. Um I mean, do they go to North or South Pole? I'm just kidding. No, no. Actually, explain polar.

SPEAKER_01 28:14

Polar, they are charged compounds.

SPEAKER_00 28:16

So they have a charge that are they're mostly negatively charged?

SPEAKER_01 28:20

Negative, yes, negatively charged. So after we I know this is all chem 101, but this is the kind of analytical chemistry. So after we extract all these compounds, we do a lot of analytical methods like uh LCMS, uh liquid uh UHPLC, GCMS, these all tools they help separate those compounds.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

Exactly. You're trying to I you're trying to identify, okay, there are like you know what are the and that's done with their their molecular weight, because each compound Yes, we're comparing the molecular weight for example, we are running standards first, and we start running our samples. So let's say we wanted to find anthocyanin as an example. So you have a standard that a company gives you. Hey, this is what anthocyanin looks like. Exactly. And then you run the sample and you say, oh, this matches this speak.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

We compare the retention time, the peak, and I know it's getting technical, but exactly.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

So once you find the compounds, what happens then?

SPEAKER_01 29:18

After that, uh we uh isolate these compounds and we tested them in Vivo and in vitro. So for example, in vitro, we have different Hellman cell lines.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

Oh, you can use cell lines. I mean people are familiar with like the Hella cell lines. Yes. So something like that?

SPEAKER_01 29:35

Yeah, something like that, like A549, like HEPG2, like are these cell lines made from different, like is there a skin cell line?

SPEAKER_00 29:44

Is there a like a mucous cell line, the cultural cell line?

SPEAKER_01 29:48

We have hundreds of cell lines. Okay, okay. It depends on if you are targeting uh disease related to skin, to kidney liver, so you have to pick the right cell line to work on. So we test it with different concentration.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

But how do you know that it is anti-cancer? Yes. Do you produce cancer in those lines or are there lines which already produce cancer? I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

Okay. So for example, if we picked, for example, A549, which is lung carcinoma cells.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

Oh, it's from the uh it's from cancerous cell line already. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

It's already from cancer cell line. Oh, okay. We have something called normal cell line, but we have something else called carcinoma cell line. So we grow them in uh under specific condition, carbon dioxide and temperature and hiomate for sure. And once we reach the good number, we taste whatever compound what we have at different grounds. Different concentration. Yes, for sure, different uh concentration. And we have another one, control, without nothing. Yeah, yeah. So then we do something like MTT assay to determine the cytotoxicity. How this compound, how much this compound killing from those cells.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

Okay, specifically the cancer cells. Yes. So and how it's allowing the healthy cells to grow. Exactly. Oh, that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

Because sometimes we have we found many compounds working perfectly as anti-cancer, but unfortunately, when we test the same compound on normal cell, still killing it. Still killing the normal cell. That's what we are not looking for.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

And there is no way to predict this. You have to do the experiment, of course.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Yes, exactly. We have to do we have to do the experiments, and we can uh follow that by QBCR. So QBCR and BCR to see the gene expression. For example, we have specific gene related to inflammation, like interglykine, 68, uh and RF2, all these kinds of genes. We see the expression after we test the compound on the cell.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

So if something is toxic, it will increase the inflammation. Yes. And you can catch the ex change in that that gene, though those genes related to inflammation have started working out. Actually, nowadays they are selling these products out there, check your inflammation status or something like that. So there are a lot of diets being proposed. People should just eat fruits and vegetables. Of course. And and nuts. Every day. And and a little bit of coffee, as you said, just to stay healthy and it will keep the inflammation down, right? Yes. That's fascinating. So that's how you check. So inflammation is a marker in a way.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

Yes, we have mini inflammation markers we can check on the lab. Yeah. So we do all this kind of to be sure that this compound is working as anti-cancer.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

So once you find out what you do.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

Then we move to the the last step. Can we synthesize this compound in the lab or not?

SPEAKER_00 32:48

But going back to my previous question, even if you can synthesize, when you eat that product, that compound in its native form, for example, let's go to the Drew Dewberry. Okay. You found a novel like compound one which is which can keep you strong and fit and build muscle. I'm just hypothesizing. But if if that product was synthesized specifically, uh will it have the same effect then compared to eating a dewberry?

SPEAKER_01 33:20

Yes, for sure. How I will explain for for you. After we for example, we discovered this compound working as anti-cancer. So we followed that by something called optimization. So because we have a challenge here for what we are eating. So if you are eating and you're thinking that you are eating one milligram gallic in your cup of coffee, it is not working like that. Yeah, okay. Because we have something called bioavailability. Yes. So you are taking, yes, we are taking caffeine, you are taking gal gallic, epicatechin, all this kind of compound. But once it reaches to your gut, the gut starts working on them making the bioavailability less okay. So how we can mitigate that by collaborating with pharmacy. We have four different projects right now. We are working with uh pharmacy college here in Texas EM. So we are doing something called computer-aided drug discovery. So we're working on this compound, what we found, for example, resveratrol. We found resveratrol in wine, especially for red wine. Yeah, and you know, resveratrol working perfectly for cardiovascular disease. So what we are doing, we're doing optimization. For example, if the compound you have different OH in specific uh position, we're trying by using computer-aided drug discovery to make it more active, to make it more stable, to make it more available.

SPEAKER_00 34:59

So that it can stay, uh it can survive the gut environment, the the hydrochloric acid in the gut and doesn't get destroyed, but it gets uptaken in our smaller intestines. Yes. That's where it gets absorbed into our system.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

Exactly. That's why we are working together. Oh, great. So in horticulture department here, we are working until we identify 10, 3, 4, 5 compounds. Then we move to uh the last step, which is how we can synthesize this compound in the lab, and we are doing that collaborating with another department.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

That's amazing. So yeah, I think that's the best part of being at AM. You got everybody, any expert you want in the world. Exactly. Exactly. It's a very nice lab. Yeah, that's really fascinating. So going back to the story, so you're you got your uh PhD.

SPEAKER_01 35:49

Yes, from Hiroshima, yeah, in Japan. I learned a lot from my professor there. How I can use uh HPLC, how I can use NMR, uh GCMS, all kinds of analytical tools. Then uh I moved back to Egypt uh as assistant professor. Okay. Then I worked there for one year, then I moved to Florida ANM University as a postdoc research associate. I was primarily working on Moscadine grapes. Okay, and we did a lot of work on Muscadine grapes related to Moscadines are very uh very unique there. It's a native, it is since it's a native of to this region. We published a lot on moscadine grapes. Then I asked myself, I need to learn something more. I need to do something related to not only cancer. What about cardiovascular? So I moved to Virginia Tech University, to Faralen Biomedical Research Institute. Okay. I was working closely to uh patients and hospital. So if someone passed away, I just go and take some cells from the artery and grow them in the lab and trying to test different compounds. We have a big library, more than 1,000 compounds. We're testing them on different uh epithelial uh and smooth muscle.

SPEAKER_00 37:12

And these were patients from cardiovascular issues. Yes, okay. Cardiovascular issues.

SPEAKER_01 37:16

Yes, for sure. Then I got hired here in uh the Department of Horticulture Sciences.

SPEAKER_00 37:22

I wanted to, I had never thought that horticulture would be so close, like so connected with medicine, the practice of medicine. Yes. You know, this has just opened my mind. I thought we were going to space with horticulture, but actually we are getting even more closer to human health. And I think this really changes the perspective on our well-being mission is that wow, you're you're kind of bridging direct clinical impact as well. Yes. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 37:51

This is a good thing for horticulture.

SPEAKER_00 37:53

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 37:54

Yes, horticulture close to everything. Close to close to human health, close to uh industry, close to everything. Everything.

SPEAKER_00 38:05

Yeah. Well, it's part of life, you know, start with you know, coffee in the morning and people don't. Well, uh, that's what you know, we've often discussed in this uh forum about horticulture, people forgetting what it is. What when you were growing up, what was your understanding of horticulture?

SPEAKER_01 38:20

It's like kind of fruits and vegetables.

SPEAKER_00 38:23

That's it. That's it. People talk about oh, it's about plants, but they don't realize that you know, raw crops are different. High volume, low value, however, and hey, we need those two.

SPEAKER_01 38:35

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 38:35

I mean, I'm not saying, I mean, we we need the we need the full plate. We need everything. We need our bread as well. Yes. Don't get me and the rice. I love rice.

SPEAKER_01 38:43

But we are an important part from the state.

SPEAKER_00 38:45

I think maybe a more important part. Yes, exactly. I'm biased. Okay. Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_01 38:50

If you look to the food pyramid.

SPEAKER_00 38:51

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 38:52

If you see the base or the foundation for this pyramid, it is fruits and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables. Which is of course, all the protein has to come from meats and everything, but you know, but this is not the basic forest.

SPEAKER_00 39:04

But you said earlier, this is a great source of fiber as well and other nutrients as well. So, you know, um, I think uh we don't use the word horticulture here that much. We call it specialty crops, but that's all encompassing. I think horticulture is an old word, so people really don't use it that much. But I think what we're trying to do is obviously pop bring back that awareness. And we have a 70 to 80 billion dollar industry in the state of Texas alone, which is horticulture crops, which spans everything from ornamentals to fruits and vegetables to nuts to grapes and wine grapes. And now we're doing this controlled environment production of which is greenhouse production, indoor farming, space farming. Yes. And you can change the conditions to make them healthier now, right? Exactly. That's what you were saying earlier as well.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 39:54

Cool, cool. Okay, sorry, Virginia Tech, let's go back there.

SPEAKER_01 39:57

Yeah, so in Virginia Tech, I was working on cardiovascular disease. Wow. And we did a lot of work uh testing different plant-based bioactives on how it affects on the proliferation and migration of smooth muscle cells and uh abicillate cells. Then in 2024, I get hired here in the Department of Horticulture Sciences as assistant professor. Um and since I joined here, start building our program which is focusing on developing new horticulture crops not only for human health but also for industry. Yes. More resilient, yeah, more uh resistant to any kind of abiotic and antibiotic stresses. And collaborating with Texas Department of Agriculture, different departments here and at Texas AM University to secure more funds for nationally work, right?

SPEAKER_00 41:00

You're connected nationally as well. Yes, and nationally as well. Yeah, yeah. Well, actually, what you just said also connects with our two other parts of our mission sustainability, which includes economic viability of our farmers and our economy. Yes. And then you're also teaching, so students, you know, we are trying to train students for the future as well. So what classes do you teach?

SPEAKER_01 41:19

Okay. For sure, I I love teaching. Uh I am teaching right now key metabolites in horticulture crops. This course focusing on how to understand that what you are eating every day, there is a lot of beneficial components.

SPEAKER_00 41:34

That could be a cool uh sort of class for any student on campus, right?

SPEAKER_01 41:38

Exactly. That's why I keep receiving messages, emails from different departments. You need to join the course because all of us we need that course. Yeah, we need to understand what we are eating, which is good for health, which is not good for health. So, and also I'm teaching garden science.

SPEAKER_00 41:57

Garden science, wow.

SPEAKER_01 41:58

Yes, it's a very nice course. It covers.

SPEAKER_00 42:01

But that's for non-majors, right? Garden science. Anyone can take that.

SPEAKER_01 42:04

Yes, yes, for non-major garden science.

SPEAKER_00 42:07

That's fascinating. So, you know, that's the other part of our sort of mission where we train students, and finally, of course, we got to take care of our environment. So the resilient crop development, exactly, uh, soil health, etc., because that also feeds into, you know, there's a statement healthy soils, healthy plants, healthy people. Exactly. So I think that's an important sort of uh system.

SPEAKER_01 42:29

Yeah, and also uh recently we started collaborating with NASA developing some uh project how we can produce high nutritious food for astronauts.

SPEAKER_00 42:40

For space travel.

SPEAKER_01 42:41

Yes, for space travel.

SPEAKER_00 42:42

So horticulture is the sort of space exploration is the next frontier for horticulture. Exactly. That's amazing. Yes. Well, the other part of our mission is food security, and I think a lot of people, and I've said this multiple times, is for any any sort of place, food security is not just availability of food. It's the ability to food make food and the infrastructure to make food. And infrastructure is changing, right? We do field production, we do control environment production and space production. So I think that's the big part. Uh that's an important part, but the ability, again, students, right? So that's really fascinating. So your path has been very linear, isn't it? Yes. It's not been linear. You've been kind of, although there was an interest, there was a foundation, but you've kind of changed paths, changed countries. Yes. And here you are.

SPEAKER_01 43:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

So this is amazing. As you're starting to develop your program, as you I mean, none of us have a crystal ball, but what what do you look forward to? What are some of the innovations that might change the field of horticultural sciences? So or food production in general, you know.

SPEAKER_01 43:42

Yes, the innovation in our program in horticultural science, we are trying to, as I mentioned, developing new crops. Yeah. New unit.

SPEAKER_00 43:53

Is that the answer always?

SPEAKER_01 43:54

It's always the answer for for my problem.

SPEAKER_00 43:57

Is that the only answer?

SPEAKER_01 43:58

No, no, it's not the only answer. have a lot of answers for that but for sure we as you mentioned we developing products new products new functional foods yes for space and also for farmers and the growers because we are helping we cannot work alone yeah we are working in a cycle like farmers us as academia and our customers and students and the students for sure it's like a cycle yeah so that's why we are focusing as much as we can to help our students help our growers and farmers and also helping consumers. So for from this point of view we did a lot of work on different horticulture crops as I mentioned blueberry, kiwi strawberry dewberry to make this compound sorry make this kind of plants not just good for health also good as a economic engine for farmers and growers.

SPEAKER_00 45:09

But you also kind of gave some other ideas that when farmers tend the fruit or vegetables they can also use it for as a secondary source processing so that can actually support our food science department.

SPEAKER_01 45:22

Oh 100% that's why we get a lot of grants as a collaborating between food science and horticulture because both working together even pharmacy now start working with us. To be honest horticulture is very important. We need to collaborate with most of the people they need to collaborate with us. Alright sounds because we are a core foundation.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

Yeah well yes yes I mean I think if you look around the world horticulture crops which is you know have been the center of everything that's where people uh around the world have domesticated horticulture crops and of course rice wheat corn soybean etc have become obviously the raw crops have become sort of ubiquitous.

SPEAKER_01 46:07

Exactly and we are missing something here animal also. Yes we get a grant from USDA that's supporting animals and you will tell me what is the relation between animals and horticulture. Yeah I told you so horticulture as you just mentioned it's not only vegetables fruits no we have medicine plants yes we have Texas for example it's a good produce for uh producer for a rosemary right yeah yeah so and we can grow rosemary here with a large amount we found that there is some compounds exist in rosemary that work as an antibacterial and antifungal for cattle. Oh wow so we found that and very obvious and we tested that in the lab and we found very significant very promising results is for an for cattle for example also we got another project for fish we found that uh black seeds you know that black seeds or yes sesame seeds yes we found a lot of oils a lot of antioxidant compounds we tested that in vetro in the lab and we found that most of these uh products can work perfectly for antibacterial and in fish production in fish production farming yes so horticulture connected with animal health yeah animal health plant health yes everything so it's basically for a healthy planet exactly for a healthy horticulture for a healthy planet I like that so that's the innovation we're heading towards from your perspective exactly that's fascinating well thank you for being here today thank you and uh it's been uh really a joy learning a lot more on this aspect uh of horticulture thank you sir all right thanks and gear we hope you enjoyed this episode of horticultural innovators subscribe if you want to learn more and spread the good word thanks and gear