Chemical and biological properties of cannabis sativa seeds, flowers and leaves found in Malawi
Date
2021-03-04
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Kamuzu University of Health Sciences
Abstract
Cannabis sativa is an important herbaceous specie originally from Central Asia, where it was
used for various purposes such as food, recreation, spiritual things as well as treatment for
various diseases. (1). Currently researches are underway investigating the application of
Cannabis sativa on various diseases like cancer, diabetes, psychotropic, hallucinogen and
malaria (2-4). It has also been and is being used for numerous industrial and commercial
applications like paper, building materials, textiles, cosmetics, food products, and as
nutritional supplements. (5-7), the above applications are due to chemical and biological
composition of Cannabis sativa such as cannabidiol and delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol.
(THC)
This research will be laboratory-based type of study as it will involve determination of
Cannabinoid levels and antimicrobial activity testing in the laboratory. Therefore, this
research will focus on determining chemical and biological properties of Cannabis Sativa.
To answer the problem described above this research will use the following specific
objectives, to extract chemical constitutes of Cannabis sativa, to determine the antibacterial
activity of Cannabis sativa extract and to compare levels of cannabinoids in Malawian
Cannabis with that in other countries.
Various techniques (methods) have been used to isolate the chemical constituents of
Cannabis sativa and some of the most commonly applied techniques include, Gas
chromatography, Reverse phase -High Performance Liquid Chromatography and Ultraviolent
detector (8-9), but in this research will use thin layer chromatograph. After extraction
of Cannabis sativa chemical constituents, it will be used to test anti-bacterial activity.
Our expectation is that chemical constituents of Cannabis sativa found in Malawi will be
similar to that found in other parts of the world. And that will mean that there’s chance that Malawian Cannabis can also achieve the same biological activities. The findings of this study
will be disseminated at college of medicine in a presentation