UTRGV researchers discovered aloe vera peels can be transformed into a natural insecticide that will benefit farmers from all across the globe.
Associate Professor at the UTRGV School of Integrative Biological and Chemical Sciences Debasish Bandyopadhyay discovered this through an observation in a local production facility.
He noticed plants near aloe vera weren’t eaten by insects, unlike other plants farther away.
Graduate student and member of the project Bryan Ramirez explained the research process.
“The first thing we do is that we obtain aloe vera leaves and then we basically skin them and only take the rind of the plant,” Ramirez said. “From there, we’ll dry the rinds up until there’s no moisture left in them and we’ll grind them up into a powder. Once the powder is set up, we will react it and then we will do column chromatography to separate the compounds. From there, we will isolate pure compounds. They moved on to field testing on a small scale … so we did it with a few plants and tested on a few different insects.”
He said the main obstacle during this project is the purification and identification.
“Because with natural products, it’s not like a regular chemical reaction where you can just predict which one it can be for the natural product we’re getting, maybe anywhere from 20 to 30 different types of compounds,” Ramirez said. “So, the hardest part would be identifying which one of those is actually having the effect as an insecticide and which ones are just byproducts that have different undiscovered properties.”
He said he has gained teamwork skills and learned to run laboratory equipment throughout the research project.
“So, it was a difficult challenge, and obviously made mistakes were made along the way, but just learn to increase your skills in order to avoid and we are able to with that we’re able to mass produce it on a larger scale, much more efficiently and faster if we try to do this again and with other different types of plants.”
He mentioned the benefits students take away from being part of the research project.
“We have a lot of people in the lab that want to go to medicine pharmacy … compounds can be used for cancer research or as natural agents that’s our main purpose,” Ramirez said.
He said the next step in the project is to find a collaborator who would be interested in the project.
“So, maybe someone in the beauty industry as they use a lot of aloe vera in their products so maybe it might entice them to make more money in the side selling incesticide that’s natural and wont cause as much harm to us,” Ramirez said.
This is Celeste Cruz for Vaquero Radio.
