# Botanical Core

> **NIH NIH U19** · OREGON HEALTH & SCIENCE UNIVERSITY · 2024 · $385,922

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY_BOTANICAL CORE
Many botanicals are touted to have beneficial effects on cognition, mood, sleep quality and other functions that 
are diminished during aging. An abiding challenge with scientific studies involving botanicals is the complexity 
and variability of their chemical profile as well as ambiguities in the identity and species homogeneity of 
botanical preparations. The proposed Botanical Dietary Supplement Research Center (BDSRC) will perform 
studies critical to future clinical trials of “Botanicals enhancing neurological and functional resilience in aging”. 
Based on public/health/relevance, public interest and exciting preliminary data this BDSRC will focus on 
developing and evaluating Centella asiatica (CA; “gotu kola”) and Withania somnifera (WS; “ashwagandha”) as 
botanical dietary supplements that show high promise to promote neurological and functional resilience in an 
aging population. The Botanical Core (B-Core) will support the research projects of the BDSRC by (1) 
providing authenticated and well characterized CA and WS derived materials for use in the BDSRC’s research 
as well as by any CARBON collaborations, will source plant material, authenticate and document its macro-, 
scopic and chemical characteristics, and produce, characterize and provide derivatives (extracts, fractions and 
compounds) of CA and WS to the BDSRCs research project and CARBON collaborators. The B-Core will 
develop, advance and apply analytical methods based on liquid chromatography (LC) coupled to mass 
spectrometry (MS) for the quantification of active compounds in CA and WS both in plant materials and in 
biological samples (plasma, brain) derived from animals treated with the botanicals. (3) The B-core will provide 
high content fingerprints of botanical extracts based on high resolution mass spectrometry-enabled 
metabolomics techniques. And, (4) the B-Core together with biostatistics support (provided by the A-Core) will 
conduct chemometric correlation approaches to identify active compounds, where preparations of CA and WS 
are fingerprinted by LC-HRMS and evaluated in a series of bioassays conducted under Project 2. In addition, 
the B-Core will participate in a cross-component effort to discover unknown biological effects of CA botanicals 
by evaluating gene expression and/or metabolomics data from primary neurons (Project 2) and brains of 
animals (Project 1) treated with CA or derivatives, and attempt integration of the “omics’ findings under the 
guidance of a Bioinformatician (A-Core). The work of the B-Core will therefore be essential to, and synergistic 
with, activities of the other components of this BDSRC and with other CARBON collaborators.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10875569
- **Project number:** 5U19AT010829-05
- **Recipient organization:** OREGON HEALTH & SCIENCE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** CLAUDIA S MAIER
- **Activity code:** U19 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $385,922
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-07-01 → 2026-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10875569

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10875569, Botanical Core (5U19AT010829-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10875569. Licensed CC0.

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