The lab strives to identify potential functional ingredients of crops that could provide benefits in terms of health and well-being. The efforts include the establishment of platforms for the extraction, isolation and evaluation of novel functional ingredients, high-throughput screening of functional ingredients, selection of crop species and varieties with high functional ingredients, and establishment of best crop cultural practices. The major research themes are: 1) selection of rice varieties that lower blood sugars and blood lipids; 2) selection of indigenous medicinal herbs that lower blood sugars or fasten wound healing; and 3) functional properties of tea seed oil.
