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Currently the UAE is the fourth ranked date-producing country in the world with a harvest accounting for nearly one million metric tons a year. The pit of the date makes up nearly 15% of its total weight when ripe depending on the particular variety and quality of the date. The UAE produces approximately 70,000 tons of date pits every year for which there isn’t always any immediately obvious use. In fact, typically this apparent waste product of date production is either discarded or on occasion used as animal feed, even then it needs to be soaked thoroughly for several days to make it soft enough for the animals to eat. As a result date processing factories sell off unwanted date pits for almost no cost.

However, a recent discovery here in the UAE, has suggested another, more practical and potentially lucrative use for date pits. It could also help in the raising of animals without the need for expensive commercial antibiotics. Researchers at the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) have discovered that compounds from unwanted date pits can be effective in inhibiting a range of pathogenic bacteria in chickens – holding out the future possibility of treating pathogens such as Salmonella, Campylobacter, Shigella and E-coli without recourse to expensive and possibly harmful commercial antibiotics. This breakthrough has already been granted a European patent.

Professor Ahmed Hussein from the College of Food and Agriculture at UAEU and his research team discovered that date pits degraded by fungi were as effective as synthetic antibiotics.

His Excellency Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mubarak Al Nahayan, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research and Chancellor of UAEU personally met with the research team to congratulate them on their accomplishment and to commend them on their continuous research efforts to seek solutions to the challenges facing the wider community which is in line with the vision of UAEU and contributes to the development of the UAE as a modern and successful nation recognized both regionally and internationally.  

Dr. Ali Rashid Al Noaimi, UAEU Vice Chancellor, also commended this remarkable biomedical achievement and stressed the university's interest and commitment to scientific research. “UAEU pursues excellence in probing for new and significant scientific discoveries that can be translated into tangible social benefits, whether in the fields of medicine and health, food and agricultural development and the environment,” he said.

Currently the poultry, fish and livestock industries supplement animal feed with synthetic antibiotics to improve the growth of the animals and the efficiency of their feeding cycle. These synthetic antibiotics also protect the animals from both pathogenic and non-pathogenic enteric microorganisms. However, the use of synthetic antibiotics can cost the various industries many billions of dollars every year.

According to Professor Hussein, who teaches Poultry Nutrition in the Department of Arid Land Agriculture at the university, “commercial antibiotics add to the cost of raising chickens for food, but the ‘waste product’ date pit could be fed to poultry as a supplement instead.”

Professor Hussein’s successful research team included Salem Al-Yileili – a PhD student at UAEU – Dr. Ibrahim Belal from the College of Food and Agriculture and Dr. Khalid Al-Tarabilly from the Biology Department in the College of Sciences.

Salem Al-Yileili, still studying for his Doctorate, was excited to be involved in such cutting-edge research, which is of both national and international importance. He further highlighted that this breakthrough in natural antibiotics could not have been achieved without the continuous support of the UAE government and the administration, faculty and staff at UAEU.

The research team at UAEU has been working for three years to first develop and then refine the process treating date pits with specific fungi to produce the desired antimicrobial activity. Professor Hussein is quick to point out that such research may be only the start of even greater discoveries and important breakthroughs. Something that UAEU, with its state-of-the-art facilities, highly qualified faculty and motivated students is well placed to pursue. 

“We understand only part of the mechanism, we are still looking for more information on how the degradation products of date pits work to reduce the colonization of pathogenic bacteria in the digestive systems of chickens and fish.”

The Intellectual Property & Technology Transfer Office decided, due to potential interest in this invention, to register this innovation in the UAE, USA and Hong Kong Patent Offices as well as in Europe. A patent certificate is expected to be granted to UAEU by Hong Kong before the end of 2014.