Creating Plant-Based Compounds to Prevent Infections [Video]

Transcript

My laboratory got interested in studying an antioxidant that actually comes from your diet, from eating plants.

Plants actually produce a molecule, cyanide, to prevent insects from eating them.

We actually then can take that cyanide, detoxify it and convert it into a molecule called thiocyanate.

Thiocyanate is an interesting molecule as it can act as an antioxidant, but also can be used by our body’s immune system to actually prevent and fight infections from bacteria and viruses.