Cyherbia Botanical Park is collaborating with Frederic Research Center and academics of the Department of Pharmacy at the University of Frederick, with The General Chemistry of the State on a research programme for NatCy Soap. This soap is made of an endemic cypriot herb, Saponaria Cypria.
The project is funded by the Foundation for Research and Innovation and concerns the use of endemic plants in Cyprus for the development of an innovative natural product. The research proposal was among those approved for funding by the Research and Innovation Foundation under the RESTART 2016-2020 Call for Business Research, submitted and evaluated by over 100 proposals from external scientific experts. The purpose of the proposal is to isolate and exploit saponins from the endemic species of Cyprus, Saponaria cypria, which is cultivated under controlled conditions. The extracts will be characterized and used to investigate their medicinal properties. The results of the experiments will be used to produce an innovative natural product from Cyherbia. The proposal has been developed and will be implemented in collaboration with the Frederick Research Center, which attaches great importance to cooperation with industry at the level of research, innovation and technology transfer. In particular, researchers and academics of the Department Frederick University Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Despina Charalambous and Dr. Maria Pandelidou, and Dr. Marios Andreou, a researcher with the Nature Conservation Unit, will undertake much of the research work required for the project. Particularly important will be the involvement of the General Chemistry of the State in the quantitative and qualitative characterization of the extracts.
It should be mentioned that the natural product expert, Dr. Aristides Katsos, had an important role in creating the idea.