Lauki juice can now last 6 months as Vidarbha scientist gets patent

NAGPUR: Doctors may have different opinions on the use of bottle gourd or lauki or dudhi to keep the heart healthy, but there are thousands of patients who have the juice daily. They believe that lauki’s antioxidant properties protect cells.
Lauki juice starts losing its properties and turns toxic after 30 minutes and becomes completely useless after one and a half hours.Many have suffered food poisoning after consuming the juice preserved for more than 90 minutes. But all that is set to change because of a research done by a Vidarbha scientist. Now, the whole fruit is converted into microspheres and can be used for six months or more.
Dr Sameer Kulkarni, a researcher originally from Buldhana district and presently working in an R&D department of a leading pharma company in Hyderabad, has developed a stable microsphere formulation that has maintained the antioxidant efficacy of bottle guard for at least six months.
The Indian Patent Office has taken note of this work and has approved the patent for microspheres with stable antioxidant performance to Dr Kulkarni.
“We have been working on this project since year 2002. We had applied for the patent in 2012. Recently, we got the process patent of the bottle guard extract into microspheres and also product patent for producing it into cream format,” said Dr Kulkarni who has done his PhD on the same subject.
The origin of this research in from Nagpur. Hruday Mitra Mandal, an organization promoting bottle gourd juice, had approached Dr Kulkarni.
“The then president of our group, well known scientist Dr Avinash Dorle, approached Dr Kulkarni and asked him to work on this issue. Dr Kulkarni accepted the challenge and carried out research at the R&D laboratory of Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi,” said Arvind Bhaskarwar of Hruday Mitra Mandal.
“Dr Kulkarni put in efforts into R&D to invent the present microsphere formulation that would show antioxidant activity of bottle gourd for a long period of at least 6 months,” he added.
Dr Kulkarni is an M.Pharm. (pharmaceutics, first rank holder) and recipient of AICTE fellowship, Ph.D. (pharmaceutics), Birla Institute of Technology. He has several national and international research publications in his name. Unfortunately, Dr Dorle could not see his wish come true as he died in a road accident five years ago.
“However, Hriday Mitra Mandal highly appreciates the efforts taken by Dr Sameer Kulkarni and the success he has achieved,” said Bhaskarwar.
ALL ABOUT MICROSPHERES
* Microspheres are small spherical particles with diameters in micrometre range
* Researchers (Dr Kulkarni and Dr Dorle) contributed a new technique/technology in which microspheres from extract of bottle guard were developed with increased antioxidant efficiency
* Stable microsphere formulation can maintain antioxidant efficacy for at least six months
* Can be dissolved in water and consumed like fresh juice
* Next step is to develop cream form for easy consumption
* City’s Hruday Mitra Mandal played pivotal role in initiating research