ConTrAl

Integrated analytical approach for identification of tropane alkaloids-producing plants and assessing their contamination level in herbal teas

Acronim: ConTrAL

Funding authority/Autoritatea Contractantă: The Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding (UEFISCDI)/Unitatea Executivă pentru Finanțarea Învățământului Superior, a Cercetării, Dezvoltării și Inovării

Competition identificator/Identificator competiție: PN-IV-RU-SC-TE-2023-1

Coordinating institution/Instituție coordonatoare: National Research and Development Institute for Biological Sciences (INCDSB)

Implementation period: 24 months (January 2025- December 2026)

Contract number: 21TE/03.01.2025

Total funding: 500.000 RON

Principal investigator/Director de proiect: Dr. Ancuta-Cristina Manolica, Senior Researcher (CSII)

Mission of ConTrAl

ConTrAl builds on numerous data and studies reporting that commercial herbal teas are highly susceptible to contamination with toxic tropane alkaloids (TAs), raising serious quality and public health safety concerns. The evidence shows an urgent need for more tailored methods to be developed and routinely applied to identify TA contamination. Severe toxic effects occur in case of TAs overdosage. The most widespread source of unintentional ingestion of TAs is the consumption of foodstuffs, such as herbal teas, which have been contaminated or cross-contaminated due to co-harvested TAs-containing weeds. ConTrAl aims to develop, test, and apply innovative analytical solutions to detect plant species containing TAs and to obtain analytical data about the TAs that occur as contaminants in commercially available herbal teas.

Work Packages (WPs) of ConTrAl

Work Package 1

Identification of plant species containing tropane alkaloids (TAs) using DNA based-methods

Work package 2

Determination of tropane alkaloids (TAs) in herbal teas by using chromatography-based methods

Work package 3

Risk for the Romanian consumers of herbal teas contaminated with tropane alkaloids (TAs)

Work package 4

Dissemination, communication and career development

Work package 5

Project management

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EMAIL US

Contact contral.21te@gmail.com to get more information on the project