Download New Zealand scientists find anti-cancer drug

New Zealand scientists find anti-cancer drug
Published: Saturday November 28, 2009 MYT 5:43:00 PM
WELLINGTON: Two New Zealand scientists have discovered a new class of anti-cancer medicines that kill
tumors without the side effects of traditional therapies, China's Xinhua news agency said citing a local media
report Saturday.
Medicinal chemist Jeffrey Smaill and cancer biologist Adam Patterson, from Auckland University, said their
"prodrugs" inactive compounds triggered by the body's own metabolic processes have already shown dramatic
results in the lab.
Their discovery, announced at an international cancer drug conference in Boston this week, is being heralded
as a major breakthrough in fighting hard-to-treat cancers, like those of the lungs, brain, pancreas and stomach,
according to The Dominion Post newspaper.
Smaill, who has spent 10 years synthesising the compounds, said they worked by targeting the proteins in
tumors that tell cells to multiply.
"The main problem with previous drugs developed to target these proteins was they also affected normal,
healthy tissue in the skin and gut, causing serious side effects such as severe diarrhea, rashes, nausea and
vomiting, which limited the dose a patient could tolerate," he said.
The surface of a healthy gut is renewed every 48 hours, about the same rate as a tumor.
For half a century, scientists have known that two-thirds of tumors have patches containing low levels of
oxygen, called hypoxic tumor cells, which are harder to treat with radiation and more likely to spread.
Dr Patterson said the prodrugs actually use this feature against the tumor, by zeroing in on hypoxic cells before
they activate.
"If we can target and kill these cells we should be able to dramatically improve the outcome for cancer
patients," he said.
Unlike other drugs that only stay in the tumor for a few hours, the prodrug sticks to the tumor for over 72 hours.
"It's very common for tumors to start regrowing after you stop administering this type of cancer drug. But after
we stopped doses of this prodrug, the tumors still hadn't regrown 30 days later," he said. - Bernama
Palm oil kills breast cancer cells
SINGAPORE, Dec 1 – Scientists in Singapore have discovered a natural compound in palm oil that can kill
breast cancer cells.
The compound, called gamma-tocotrienol, which was extracted in its natural form from palm oil, demonstrated
powerful cancer-killing properties, according to findings by Davos Life Science Singapore, a research and
development centre.
In a statement today, the centre said the compound could be found at low levels in food sources such as palm
oil, barley and rice bran.
The centre said its scientists partnered with the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong
and the Australian Prostate Cancer Research Centre in conducting the cancer study.
The study showed during in-vitro experiments, the natural compound demonstrated greater potency than
‘Docetaxel’, a commonly-used chemotherapy drug used to treat breast cancer.
This was the first tocotrienol study to identify the key upstream regulators that mediated breast cancer
progression and invasion, the centre said.
The compound was also found to suppress the invasive ability of breast cancer cells to spread to other organs
via metastasis.
While the doses of gamma-tocotrienol showed positive anti-cancer effects, they did not affect the normal cell
functions of healthy cells, the study found.
Davos Life Science was set up in 2004, as a manufacturer that isolates and purifies natural tocotrienol, for use
in supplements, functional food, personal care and pharmaceutical formulations. It has established the world’s
largest R&D centre dedicated to tocotrienol and the world’s largest manufacturing facility for the production of
natural tocotrienol. – Bernama