earthworm as an antioxidant

[Gester]

we would like to have an antioxidant from an extreacted earthworm . .

Can you help us with our project..........

[deleted-2131]

See reply on other thread.

[hhemken]

Gester,

I see your project is "Inhibitory Efficacy of the Extracted Earthworm as an Antioxidant in Preventing the Growth of Cancer Cells," but your question sounds as if you don't know whether you know such a compound is present in earthworms or not. If I put keywords from your title into the Google keyword box and search, I do get quite a few hits. See:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=& ... tnG=Search

How do you plan on obtaining it? A project to extract it, purify it, and show that you indeed have the compound or compounds you want is in itself an ambitious project. This abstract mentions both the type of substance that has the effect as well as an experiment that is at least in principle relatively simple to carry out:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/quer ... t=Abstract

Here is an article that references journal articles you may be able to obtain, and which may describe the purification procedure, and its use as an antibacterial substance:

http://www.vef.hr/vetarhiv/papers/2005-75-2-3.pdf

It looks challenging, to say the least, even if you are able to get a copy of an article describing the extraction procedure. Many articles refer to the procedure described in a 1992 Croatian patent.

Next, I would like to know where and how you would test such a compound. Do you have access to a research lab where cancer cells are cultured or tumors are routinely cultivated in lab animals such as mice? It seems to me that you would need access to such facilities in order to carry out your project. Such facilities can be pretty hazardous, by the way. The experiment in the abstract mentioned above, while straightforward to a practicing scientst, seems rather ambitious for a science fair project. I assume one of your parents is a scientist and can provide access to the necessary facilities.

You might be able to design a project using hydrogen peroxide and yeast cells obtained from a supermarket, but then you still have the problem of preparing the earthworm extract. If you had a copy of the procedure used by scientists, you might be able to simplify if and prepare a crude extract of your own.

Please let us know what means are available to you, what grade you are in, and how much you already know about the project so that we may help you further.

Also, please place all of your posts in this thread. Please do not start any new discussion threads.

Thanks!