Emerging drying techniques for food safety and quality: A review.

The new trends in drying technology seek a promising alternative to synthetic preservatives to improve the shelf-life and storage stability of food products. On the other hand, the drying process can result in deformation and degradation of phytoconstituents due to their thermal sensitivity. The main purpose of this review is to give a general overview of common drying techniques with special attention to food industrial applications, focusing on recent advances to maintain the features of the active phytoconstituents and nutrients, and improve their release and storage stability. Furthermore, a drying technique that extends the shelf-life of food products by reducing trapped water, will negatively affect the spoilage of microorganisms and enzymes that are responsible for undesired chemical composition changes, but can protect beneficial microorganisms like probiotics. This paper also explores recent efficient improvements in drying technologies that produce high-quality and low-cost final products compared to conventional methods. However, despite the recent advances in drying technologies, hybrid drying (a combination of different drying techniques) and spray drying (drying with the help of encapsulation methods) are still promising techniques in food industries. In conclusion, spray drying encapsulation can improve the morphology and texture of dry materials, preserve natural components for a long time, and increase storage times (shelf-life). Optimizing a drying technique and using a suitable drying agent should also be a promising solution to preserve probiotic bacteria and antimicrobial compounds.

A multi-targeting natural compound with growth inhibitory and anti-angiogenic properties re-sensitizes chemotherapy resistant cancer.

Targeted therapies have become the focus of much of the cancer therapy research conducted in the United States. While these therapies have made vast improvements in the treatment of cancer, their results have been somewhat disappointing due to acquired resistances, high cost, and limited populations of susceptible patients. As a result, targeted therapeutics are often combined with other targeted therapeutics or chemotherapies. Compounds which target more than one cancer related pathway are rare, but have the potential to synergize multiple components of therapeutic cocktails. Natural products, as opposed to targeted therapies, typically interact with multiple cellular targets simultaneously, making them a potential source of synergistic cancer treatments. In this study, a rare natural product, deacetylnemorone, was shown to inhibit cell growth in a broad spectrum of cancer cell lines, selectively induce cell death in melanoma cells, and inhibit angiogenesis and invasion. Combined, these results demonstrate that deacetylnemorone affects multiple cancer-related targets associated with tumor growth, drug resistance, and metastasis. Thus, the multi-targeting natural product, deacetylnemorone, has the potential to enhance the efficacy of current cancer treatments as well as reduce commonly acquired treatment resistance.