Extracts from the seeds of the Ginkgo biloba tree show antibacterial activity on pathogens that can cause skin infections such as acne, psoriasis, dermatitis and eczema, a study at Emory University finds. Frontiers in Microbiology is publishing the results of laboratory experiments showing that the extracts inhibit the growth of Cutibacterium acnes, Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pyogenes.
A nearly 200-year-old copy of a 16th-century text on traditional Chinese medicine, the Ben Cao Gang Mu, guided the researchers in their experiments. “It was like blowing the dust off knowledge from the past and rediscovering something that had been there all along,” says Xinyi (Xena) Huang, co-first author of the paper.
Huang, a native of China, began the project for her senior thesis as a biology major at Emory. She has since graduated from Emory and is now a student at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy.
“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate the antibacterial activity of ginkgo seeds on skin pathogens,” says Cassandra Quave, senior author of the paper and assistant professor at Emory’s Center for the Study of Human Health and the School of Medicine’s Department of Dermatology. “This paper is just one more example of how much we still have to learn about the pharmacological potential of the complex chemistry of plants.”
Quave is an ethnobotanist, studying how indigenous people use plants in their healing practices, to uncover promising candidates for new drugs. Read more about the discovery.
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