(Jamaica Observer) – Jamaican scientist Dr Henry Lowe says he and a team of fellow researchers have found that a flavonoid they had isolated from the cannabis plant five years ago has the potential to mitigate against COVID-19, and the development has attracted the attention and support of the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH).

“What is exciting is that NIH is supporting us, which is very important, because if they didn’t see value, they wouldn’t be doing it,” Dr Lowe, who is known internationally for his cancer research and use of Jamaican plants to produce nutraceuticals, told the Jamaica Observer yesterday.

News of the scientific development is published in the latest edition of Molecules, a leading online, peer-reviewed, open access scientific journal published each month by Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute.

Noting that flavonoids — which are actually molecules commonly found in most fruits, like oranges, grapefruit and vegetables — are widely used as phytomedicines (herbal medicine with therapeutic and healing properties), the publication pointed out that it was reporting on “flavonoid phytomedicines with potential for development into prophylactics or therapeutics against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)”.

Yesterday Dr Lowe who was named Jamaica Observer Business Leader in 2006, explained that he and his colleague scientists had, in 2015, actually isolated the flavonoid, named Caflanone from a very rare…