In an attempt to make the best out of waste, we have utilised shade-dried flower aqueous extract, Clitorea ternatea , to synthesise nanoparticles and apply them to the biomedical field. Cancer treatment has faced many obstacles due to resistance to chemotherapeutic drugs and radio-resistance. Alternative palliative therapy can pave the way for this limitation. Copper-doped zirconia nanoparticles were synthesised in this present study, using Clitorea ternatea flower aqueous extract, and were characterised using UV–vis spectrophotometry, dynamic light scattering, zeta potential analysis, XRD, FTIR, SEM, and EDX. The size of the nanoparticles, as revealed by SEM, was in the range of 87–150 nm, and the zeta potential was − 19 mV, showing their nano size and moderate stability, respectively. Further, the biocompatibility was assessed using in vitro cell viability and haemolysis assay. The nanoparticles were found to be biocompatible up to a dose of 50 μg/mL. These nanoparticles have also shown antioxidant activity as well as cervical cancer cell-killing activity. The IC 50 for SiHa cells was found to be 23.8 μg/mL. The outcome of this study indicated that Cu–ZrO 2 –CT nanoparticles can be a promising candidate to be used along with conventional therapy to address cervical cancer. However, further studies are warranted using other cancer cell lines, as well as tumour models in animals.
Parthasarathy et al. (2026) studied this question.