Each year, the Rutgers Global Health Institute awards Global Health Seed Grants to faculty conducting collaborative, interdisciplinary activities that will impact the health of communities at home and around the world. These grants help faculty pursue new ideas and to seed expanded research and funding.
A recipient of a recent Global Health Seed Grant, Ilya Raskin, distinguished professor in the Department of Plant Biology, and his team are researching healthful compounds in plants around the world in an effort to find cures and treatments for ailments afflicting hundreds of millions of people. Their globe-spanning, wide-ranging research is featured in this article by Rutgers Global Health Institute.
Raskin and his lab also study the health benefits of Moringa oleifera, also known as the horseradish tree, which is showing promise in helping revitalize aging skin. Called moringa, for short, it is a small, fast-growing, tropical tree with edible leaves that have been used to fight diabetes for centuries and other edible parts used as nutritious food and in traditional medicine.