Quality Control and Therapeutic Valorization of Moroccan Argan oils: the impact of the sustainability of the human development

  The Argan tree (Argania pinosa L.) is a tropical plant and represents the only endemic species of the genus Argania in Morocco. The argan forest has  an area of 800.000 ha covering the fertile Souss valley region, the foothills of the Anti-Atlas mountains, and the coastal region between Essaouira and Agadir. It is the source of the Argan oil. Because of the quality profile of its photochemical composition and its high content of antioxidants, it is used for many purposes. Nowadays, adulteration of the product is increasing. Consequently there is an urgent need to control and ascertain its quality. The aim of the project focuses on the one hand, on the use of fingerprints (recommended by WHO) obtained by spectroscopic and spectrometric measurements, combined to chemometric tools to monitor the geographical identification, authentication and quality control of Argan oils. On the other hand, correlation studies and structure-activity relationships, considering in vivo anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant activities vs. fingerprints developed using hyphenated chromatographic techniques, to indicate and identify interesting compounds in the oil.