Investigating the Anti-Cancer Properties of Natural Products Isolated from Date Fruits (Phoenix Dactylifera L.) of the Omani Elite Variety ?Khalas?

Natural products extracted from the fruits of dates (Phoenix dactylifera L.) have been shown to possess many health promoting properties such as anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal, anti-bacterial and anti-oxidant effects. The purpose of the present study is to evaluate the anti-cancer effect of water-, ethanol-, ethyl acetate- and acetone-extract of the date fruit. These include the study of the effect on fibrogenesis and extracellular matrix (ECM) formation in pancreatic stromal cells. In the first stage several extracts of the Khalas date fruits will be prepared and their anti-cancer effect will be thoroughly evaluated by conducting several analytical methodologies in collaboration with college of Medicine and Health Sciences at SQU and the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg Germany. The most promising extract(s) will be prepared in multi gram quantities for in-vivo studies on mouse model to further investigate the anti-cancer effect of Omani Khalas dates extracts. Based on both in-vitro and in-vivo studies, these extracts will be further investigated by chemical isolation into their natural product components. Structure elucidation and determination of these extracted compounds will be carried out using analytical techniques available at our chemistry labs. These purely isolated natural products will be investigated to identify the responsible compound(s) for the anti-cancer activity. After the discovery of the compounds responsible for the anti-cancer activity, a synthetic methodology will be designed in accordance with retrosynthetic analysis followed by total syntheses of the desired natural product compounds. This syntheses will be carried out in labs of Chemistry Department at SQU.