Cornelis Peters (director, Europa Ayurveda Centrum) describes his role in the MEDUWA project, focusing on phytoremediation using Ayurveda herbs to remove three pharmaceuticals (tetracycline, erythromycin, metformin) from water. The project uses a mix of aquatic plants (rooted, floating, submerged) and herbal mixtures; partner labs (University of Muenster and Vetses) tested antimicrobial effects, VBNC/dormant-state impacts, membrane/metabolic damage, and measured reductions of the target medicines. Initial experiments ran over a four-week period.
Questions this video answers
Tetracycline, erythromycin, and metformin.
Four weeks.
University of Muenster.
My name is Cornelis Peters. I'm the director of Europa Ayurveda Centrum. My part in the MEDUA project is about fetal remediation. Fetoremediation is in itself not an innovation, but the innovation. What we introduced in this project is the use of Ayurveda herbs in a certain way so that we can clean the water from three important medicines.
And the medicines what we used was tetracycline, erythromycine and metformine. And we selected these medicines because these are the medicines what is coming in abundance in our waters and what we really try to avoid. Our phyto remediation consists of a selection of aquatic plants to reduce this typical medicines. Here you can see a picture from one of the test ponds where we grow our water plants. Here you can see the scientific formula from each of the medicines. What we try to reduce and the goal of this project is to demonstrate that water can be cleaned with Ayurveda plants. And the plants what we used are plants. What is growing from the bottom, what is floating free on top and what is submerged in the water. And progress to date according the test result is the University of Muenster researched the antimicrobial action with reduction of bacterial vitality in soil and water and the VBNC status of dormant but still living microorganism, in which the effect of herbal mixtures on the metabolic activity and membrane damage is determined. And the third one is the determination of medicines in soil and water with herb mixtures aimed at the removal of substances in soil and water. And we went to vetses with samples because vetces is able to really measure the reductions of the actual medicines in water. And we did this research over a.
Period of four weeks.
And what VETSAS found was the reduction was clearly visible with tetracycline and erythromycinia and the reduction was mined with metformin. And the development stage, where we are now at present is we have to calculate the amount of plants in relation to the amount of water in order to foresee how much medication can be removed and with how much water plants. I have here a picture from a wastewater treatment plant. And our idea is to in this stage to add water plants for the removal of the medicines in the water plant itself. What we see as our future for the people who might use our innovation, that are the water plant, the wastewater treatment plants, but also hospitals. For example, when you build a new hospital, you can think about to surround it with water. There you can add our water plants to clean already in that early stage, the water from medicine so that it's not flowing out of the land to other areas of the country. I continue my place here because we participate also in another innovation within Medua project. And that is the innovation herbal antibiotic replacement. And for that we selected 15 Ayurveda plants that are water plants and land plants that we cultivate on our land in Vidhare, in Ovreysl and Bima Tiona. As we mentioned, as we give the name to this group of herbs that is an elaborate multi target Ayurveda herbal preparation with antibiotic properties composed of plants that grow in our land in Overejl Bematura can be processed in animal feed to strengthen the immune system of the animals. And you can also use it as a preventive application, as an antibiotic use that can be reduced or even prevented. The goal or the aim of this innovation is that we want to show that Ayurveda herbs can be used to replace veterinary antibiotics which can prevent the use and emission of antibiotics and multi resistant bacteria. And by preventive application of this formula, antibiotic use can be reduced or even prevented. Progress to date is that we proved that the herbs in Bema Tuna has antimicrobial properties against the following bacteria. You see here eight different bacteria where Bematuna has an answer on. And one of them is also the superbug, as you see and that I give a very strong picture so that you can see that this bacteria can be prevented with our herbal preparation. And the 15 herbs in Bema Tuna are in 2019 all registered in the European Feed Registry. And that enables us to make food products from it and start a trial with a group of animals to prove its antibiotic qualities in real life. Because up to now we proved the working in petri dishes. But of course we want to prove this results also in real life. Who can use it after? It can be used by farmers, by vets, it can be used by animal shops, hobby farmers, zoos and petting zoos. Here I have the Bema tuna in powder form and here I made pellets from it. So in this way we can use it in our next trial to test it on real animals to see if we can strengthen their immune system so that they don't need antibiotics. Then they have a little bit of infection or some other thing. So this is the result of this innovation development state is like this, that the laboratory proof is done and it is proved that it has strong antimicrobial properties. But we need to have a trial and preferable a randomized double blinded trial to prove its properties in living animals. And when this proof is done, and we have some positive results from that, also we have to take the next step, and that is to register it to get a medical claim so that we can really use it as a medicine, as a natural antibiotic. And that is actually the aim of this project. Sam.
