Studies were carried out to the find out the efficacy of the ultrasonic irradiation as a pre-treatment step for the treatment of one of the polluting industrial effluents, the distillery spentwash. Experiments were carried out on the fresh and stored effluent samples. The effect of the ultrasound exposure on the biodegradability of the effluent was monitored by carrying out its subsequent aerobic oxidation. A comparison has been made between the efficacies of the pre-treated samples with the untreated samples. The results indicate that the ultrasound seems to increase the attractiveness of the conventional aerobic oxidation process by increasing their initial rates of degradation.

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In today's world of modern medicine and novel therapies, cancer still remains to be one of the prime contributor to the death of people worldwide. The modern therapies improve condition of cancer patients and are effective in early stages of cancer but the advanced metastasized stage of cancer remains untreatable. Also most of the cancer therapies are expensive and are associated with adverse side effects. Thus, considering the current status of cancer treatment there is scope to search for efficient therapies which are cost-effective and are associated with lesser and milder side effects. Phytochemicals have been utilized for many decades to prevent and cure various ailments and current evidences indicate use of phytochemicals as an effective treatment for cancer. Hyperactivation of phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) signaling cascades is a common phenomenon in most types of cancers. Thus, natural substances targeting PI3K pathway can be of great therapeutic potential in the treatment of cancer patients. This chapter summarizes the updated research on plant-derived substances targeting PI3K pathway and the current status of their preclinical studies and clinical trials.