The International Moringa Germplasm Collection houses living material of 12 of the 13 Moringa species, as a resource for scientific research on the basic biology of Moringa and investigation of applied uses such as nutrition, cancer chemoprevention, biofuels, and water clarification. It is managed by Dr. Mark Olson, of the Instituto de Biología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), and is located on the coast of Jalisco, Mexico.
Please use the collection! A standing call for international, interdisciplinary Moringa research
The International Moringa Germplasm Collection is currently producing leaves of most species of Moringa, and seed, at least in limited quantitites, of several. This material is intended to enable high-quality, interdisciplinary research on Moringa. So if your lab group is working on questions of applied or basic interest, then I would be glad to provide material and input regarding the characteristics of the species, and their relationships and evolution. Because the Collection so far gets its funding from grants that require demonstrated scientific productivity, using the Collection needs to be in the form of a collaboration with coauthorship. Also, the hope is that by using a very broad sampling across the family, the Collection can make moringa research of broader impact, so ideally collaboration would involve a commitment to move into higher-impact scientific publications rather than regional journals. Ideally, research would involve specialists from the countries of origin of the different species. If your group is interested in this sort of international collaborative research on moringa, with an aim to making it as high-impact as possible, please get in touch!
Please help support the collection with a donation
For information on how to support the collection with a donation via UNAM, please click here to get in touch. You can help keep the plants alive in the collection, help with laboratory work, or even help support a Mexican or Indian Moringa student.
Funding
The germplasm collection has moved to its permanent new location thanks to a grant from Trees for Life! Trees for Life has provided us with our research mandate to find the most protein rich moringa, and to understand aspect of moringa protein such as digestibility and amino acid profile.
Ongoing fieldwork, collection maintenance, experiments, and laboratory work are being made possible by grant IT200515 of the Programa de Apoyo a Proyectos de Investigación e Innovación Tecnológica of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
This project also recieves or has received support from:
Missouri Botanical Garden - Washington University, St Louis - U. S. National Science Foundation - National Geographic Society Committee for Research and Exploration - National Geographic Society Explorers Program
U. S. Cactus and Succulent Society - Idea Wild
Instituto de Biología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México - Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, México
Missouri Botanical Garden - Washington University, St Louis - U. S. National Science Foundation - National Geographic Society Committee for Research and Exploration - National Geographic Society Explorers Program
U. S. Cactus and Succulent Society - Idea Wild
Instituto de Biología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México - Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, México