The College of Science at the University of Basra organized a workshop on the therapeutic prospects of white mushroom. The workshop, presented by the lecturer Dr. Aseel Abdul Hamid Abdul Karim, showed that the white mushroom with the scientific name Agaricus bisporus has therapeutic importance in inhibiting the Leishmania parasite. The workshop aimed to clarify the nutritional importance of this mushroom and its medicinal potential. It included an explanation of the characteristics of this mushroom, how to cultivate it, and the types of farms developed to produce it in large quantities, thus obtaining it in commercial quantities, as well as how to extract secondary ions from it and detect them using chemical methods and analyses such as using gas mass spectrometry, colorimetric detection, thin layer chromatography, and separating active compounds using a separation column. The workshop indicated that the extracts isolated from white mushrooms can be used as an alternative drug to the known standard treatment. Pentostam, especially since the latter is considered one of the highly toxic pentavalent antimonials groups. The workshop recommended the need to find alternative treatments for some dangerous parasitic diseases in light of the high prices of available treatments, their being limited to developed countries, and the lack of vaccines for parasitic diseases.
