HEALTH BENEFITS OF FREEZE-DRIED WATERCRESS

The overarching goal of the project is to characterize the efficacy of watercress (Nasturtium officinale) on preventing the development and progression of early lesions of pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia to more advanced lesions and pancreatic cancer, and on modulating the gut microbiome.The objectives of this project are (1) to determine the efficacy of freeze-dried watercress to prevent the development of precursor pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia lesions to invasive pancreatic adenocarcinoma, by using a transgenic animal model which resembles histopathological features of the human disease, and (2) to characterize the effect of freeze-dried watercress consumption on the gut microbiome by shotgun metagenomics sequencing.