Improving Human Health Through

Plant Research and Water

Management

Health
by

Niku Agahian
 Opportunity: Plant Based Food
 Reducing impact of chronic disease through plant-based
eating
 Plant biochemistry used to identify metabolites that
promote human health
 Plant science provides insight into a reduced risk of
chronic disease in humans
 Challenge is resistance to reducing meat consumption
 Cathie Martin, “How Can Research on Plants Contribute
to Promoting Human Health”, American Society of Plant
Biologists

- Although there have been many studies

performed that demonstrate health benefits in
eating plant based foods none have been able to
show direct causation in eating plant based
foods and reduction of chronic disease.
- It would be very helpful to show direct
connection between the chemicals that plant
based diets produce and how it reduces chronic
disease.
- Development of plant research can help
correlate the effectiveness of plant based foods
in reducing or eliminating chronic disease by
identifying chemicals and their interaction in
 Opportunity: Plant Based Food
Stakeholders and Target Customers
 Stakeholders include medical providers, nutritionists,
politicians and people interested in health
 Target customers include people wanting to improve
their health and medical professionals
 Customer needs include eradicating disease, disease
prevention, and healthy lifestyle

- Stakeholders include medical providers,

nutritionist, politicians as well as people
interested in healthy living.
- Target customers include people wanting to
improve their health as well as medical
professionals.
 Solution: Plant Based Food
 Solution's Form
 “Research on plants in areas of analytical
phytochemistry, marker-assisted selection and
metabolic engineering to prevent chronic diseases”
(Kazuki Saito)
 Solution's Function
 Interaction of various chemicals from plants in the
human body to prevent or minimize the risk of
chronic diseases

- There are specific areas where scientific

research on plants can help us understand the
complex relationship between our diet and
health.
- Scientific research such as, analytical
phytochemistry, mark-assisted selection as well
as metabolic engineering would help to clarify
the mechanisms in plant based foods that help
to reduce or eliminate chronic diseases.
 Lyon-Diet Study

Source: Cathie Martin, et al.

Figure 1. Chronic Heart Disease mortality rate versus dairy fat

- The Lyon-Diet Study compared death rates in

mostly European communities from chronic
heart disease (CHD).
- The study shows correlation between high
dairy diet to high CHD.
- France stood out as an outlier of the study,
where the diet is high on dairy fat, however the
death rate is similar to Mediterranean diet.
- It has been suggested that moderate amounts
of red wine which contains polyphenols could
be counteracting the negative effects of high
dairy fat diet.
 Enabling Technologies:
Plant based Food
 Phytochemical Genomics - Use of functional genomics
to develop and evaluate alternate methods of
phytochemical composition

 Use of Marker-Assisted Selection (MAS) to help identify

specific genes
 The genetic linkage helps scientists to predict if a
plant will have a desired gene

- Phytochemical genomics looks at the function

and synthesis of phytochemicals which are
plant metabolites.
- Another technology uses marker-assisted
selection (MAS) which helps to identify
specific genes. The markers and genes are
close in proximity on the same chromosome
and hence there is a genetic linkage. The
genetic linkage help scientists to determine
whether a plant will have the desired gene.
 Phytochemical Genomics

Source: Chibuikem I. N. Unamba

Figure 2. Phytochemical Genomics

- Data driven systems biology and functional

genomics for phytochemicals.
 Technology Development
Milestones: Plant Based Food
 Next Generation Sequencing Platforms enable fast and
cost effective genome sequencing
 Use of Ampilcon Sequencing (AmpSeq) as next gen
marker genotyping platform

- Developing a semi automated pipeline

incorporating trait associated single nucleotide
polymorphism market discovery and low cost
genotyping through amplicon sequencing
(AmpSeq) and decision making.
 Societal Challenges
 Difficulty to make long-term lifestyle changes
 Cultural prejudices
 Poor availability of fruit and vegetables
 Cost
 Consumer confusion over which fruits and vegetables
are effective

- Drastically changing one's diet is more of a

lifestyle change which requires great
commitment and long term vision.
- Changing one's lifestyle does not provide
instantaneous results which makes it hard for
people to follow.
- Cultural prejudices and societal pressures
have to be considered when trying to change
eating habits.
- Economics consideration has to be taken into
account where costs of fruits and vegetables.
might be higher than readily available fast food.
- Finally there is consumer confusion over what
 Food System Drivers

Source: Cathie Martin, et al.

Figure 3. Major drivers and outcomes of food system

- High level diagram indicating what goes into

our food system and what comes out as final
product and waste. This analysis provides a
great insight into how sustainable are the foods
that we rely on and how much energy is used
for each type of food source to be produced.
 Societal Impact
 Multidisciplinary collaboration between plant breeders,
epidemiologists, chemists, nutritionists and others can
help improve understanding of how plan based diets can
reduce chronic diseases
 Shift in public opinion that chronic disease requires
pharmaceutical treatment
 General public confusion as to what constitutes a healthy
diet

- We have to change our perspective on how to

scientifically analyze the impact of plant based
foots on reducing chronic disease and have a
multidisciplinary collaboration between various
groups including plant breeders,
epidemiologists, chemists, nutritionists, and
others to help improve our understanding.
- A paradigm shift is required to think of
preventing chronic disease rather than fixing
chronic disease and hence we have to move
away from pharmaceutical treatment as to way
fix things and think about how to prevent
chronic disease by eating healthy plant based
 Opportunity: Freshwater
 Major concern on availability of drinkable fresh water
 All humans on planet Earth need drinkable fresh water
on a daily basis
 Freshwater is not distributed uniformly across Earth
 Pollution and overuse are compounding availability of
fresh water
 Challenge is directing resources to help low to middle
income areas
 Stuart E. Bunn, Grand Challenges for the Future of
Freshwater Ecosystem, Australian Rivers Institute

- Although 2/3 of earth is comprised of water

we are being challenged in finding enough
clean freshwater to drink and use for hygiene.
- Sources for freshwater are not distributed
evenly throughout the planet. Although people
have settled around lakes and bodies of water
that would supply their fresh water needs, over
time we have polluted and misused these
resources to the point where we can not reliably
rely on them to provide us with fresh clean
water.
 Opportunity: Freshwater
Stakeholders and Target Customers
 Stakeholders include medical providers, politicians,
people in villages, people in slums
 Target customers include people in villages, people in
slums and medical providers
 Customer needs include having fresh clean water for
drinking and use for hygiene

- Stakeholders include medical providers,

politicians as well as people in villages, people
in slums along with local, regional and central
governments.
- Target customers include people in villages,
people in slums as well as medical providers.
 Solution: Freshwater
 Solution's Form
 Effective engagement and management of local, regional
and global water resource industry with ecologists and
social scientists
 Educating general public on problems facing freshwater
and its dire consequences
 Solution's Function
 Establishing local, regional and global guidelines for
cultivation, usage and transportation of freshwater
 Worldwide initiative to explain freshwater problem and
the urgency to solve it

- We have to look at a holistic approach in

solving freshwater problem by engaging and
managing our water resources at local regional
and global levels as they are interrelated.
- Another key solution is to ensure the general
public understands the gravity of the situation
when it comes to clean drinkable water and its
scarcity as our population grows and we are
either diminishing our fresh water resources or
polluting them.
 Enabling Technologies: Freshwater
 Membrane chemistry that could be used to more
efficiently filter water and could be used to turn sea
water into drinkable water
 Seawater desalination is currently too expensive and
uses too much energy
 Wastewater processing technologies that transform
wastewater to energy generation and source of drinking
water
 Intelligent irrigation to optimize irrigation systems in
agriculture industry

- There are a multitude of technologies today

that can help us minimize or alleviate
freshwater problem. These include using
membrane chemistry to filter water which
could potentially be used to turn sea water into
drinkable water.
- Another technology is wastewater processing
technologies that transform waste water to
generate energy and also provide drinkable
water.
- Finally a large percentage of water is used for
agricultural irrigation. Minimizing waste in
agricultural irrigation can greatly help in
having adequate freshwater for people to use.
 Enabling Technologies: Freshwater

Figure 4. Desalination plant in Israel Figure 5. Fog Catchers

- Some of the current technologies used today

to increase freshwater are depicted above, one
is a desalination plant in Israel and the other is
a Fog Catchers setup in Middle East.
 Technology Development
Milestones: Freshwater
 Solar powered water filtration system to clean
contaminated water
 Fog catchers to accumulate mist and collect and filter for
usage
 Cost effective desalination that can efficiently process
sea water into drinking water

- With improvements in efficient and cost

effective solar power generation, water
filtration systems using solar power will
become more readily available to supply clean
water in remote areas.
- As we develop new material and can apply
new technologies to collect and catch mist
along with filtration to provide safe drinking
water.
 Societal Challenge: Freshwater
 Strong governance and effective economic incentives are
needed to improve freshwater usage
 Massive investments in water infrastructure have come
at a considerable cost to the natural environment
without adequate investment to protect aquatic
ecosystems
 Declining water quality and quantity, habitat
modification, overfishing and biological invasions pose
major threats across the globe (Stuart E. Bunn)

- Greater and stronger governance is needed

along with economic incentives to improve
freshwater usage by communities.
- Our local and regional governments have to
view water management infrastructure
holistically examining all aspects of the
proposed infrastructure to ensure aquatic
ecosystems are not being inadvertently harmed.
 Societal Impact: Freshwater
 Safe clean water allows a higher percentage of
community population to attend school or remain
employed
 Water is used for hygiene, and the lack of clean water
greatly increases the chances of water borne diseases,
such as diarrhea
 Women and girls are disproportionately affected by lack
of clean water since they are responsible to supply clean
water for their families

- Water is an essential part of life on earth.

Lack of safe clean water disproportionately
affects lower income communities where most
of the community's resources are dedicated to
collecting water from other communities,
minimizing or eliminating time that could be
spent on education and employment.
- Lack of clean water can greatly affect hygiene
in a community by increasing changes of water
borne diseases.
 References
 Sustainability of plant-based diets: back to the future, The American
Journal of Clinical Nutrition,
https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/100/suppl_1/476S/4576675
Accessed February 20, 2020.
 How Can Research on Plants Contribute to Promoting Human Health?,
ASPB, http://www.plantcell.org/content/23/5/1685 Accessed Feb 19,
2020.
 Pocket K Nov 19: Molecular Breeding and Market Assisted
Selection,ISAAA,
https://www.isaaa.org/resources/publications/pocketk/19/default.asp
Accessed Feb 21, 2020
 Phytochemical genomics – a new trend, Kazuki Saito,
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369526613000496
Accessed Feb 20, 2020.
 References Continued
 Next Generation Sequencing Technologies: The Doorway to the Unexplored
Genomics of Non-Model Plants, PMC,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4679907/ Accessed Feb 22,
2020.
 A next-generation marker genotyping platform (AmpSeq) in heterozygous crops:
a case study for marker-assisted selection in grapevine, PubMed,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4679907/ Accessed Feb 20,
2020.
 Grand Challenge for the Futuer of Freshwater Ecosystems, Frontiers in
Environmental Science,
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2016.00021/full Accessed
Feb 19, 2020.
 The new water technologies that could save the planet, Guardian sustainable
business, https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/new-water-
technologies-save-planet Accessed Feb 21, 2020.
 7 New Technologies That Create Clean Water for a Thirsty World, Goodnet,
https://www.goodnet.org/articles/7-new-technologies-that-create-clean-water-
for-thirsty-world Accessed Feb 22, 2020.