Skip to content

Health

Tweaking a natural chemical produces anti-cancer drugs

by Michael Evans 18 Mar 2011
Tweaking a natural chemical produces anti-cancer drugs

A report in a recent edition of Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry, the journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry, described how a young scientist from Imperial College London had been awarded a grant of £106,079 to investigate naturally occurring chemicals found in sea sponges in an effort to find out more about anti-cancer drugs.

31-year-old Dr Matthew Fuchter is the youngest academic to receive a grant from the charity, the Association for International Cancer Research. He said he was ecstatic to receive the funding since as well as being a major milestone in his career, it enabled him to start his independent investigations and build up expertise in cancer research.

Molecules found in deep sea organisms are used in research into a number of diseases, including malaria and cancer, but the particular sea sponge under investigation by the Imperial College team naturally contains the chemical psammaplin A. This is reported to be a powerful blocker of several components of the processing machinery in cancer cells that prevents them from growing and dividing.

Dr Fuchter and his team have discovered a new way of making psammaplin A, which creates the potential to inspire new anti-cancer drugs. The discovery also allows the researchers to make variations of the psammaplin A chemical and to use these variants to further understand the anti-cancer activity of this natural product.

Knowledge gained in this way will assist in subsequent design efforts. The team's preliminary results indicate that these psammaplin A variants are more potent than the natural product and that they could well form the basis of new selective drugs in the future.

Dr Fuchter points out that the new chemical routes toward the natural product psammaplin A were developed with the particular view to preparing diverse variants for biological assessment. ''These routes utilise cheap and commercially available starting materials and allowed access to psammaplin A variants not accessible via currently reported methods.''

He continued, ''Preliminary biological studies revealed these compounds which block the enzyme histone deacetylase are the most potent non-peptidic inhibitors discovered so far. Interestingly, psammaplin A and our man-made variants show high selectivity in lab-based experiments, which is an important feature for the design and manufacture of future drugs.''

Dr Fuchter has high praise for the Association for International Cancer Research, calling the funding a real milestone in the career of a young academic like himself. He reflected that without this financial backing he would not have been able to do the research and without it the work to design new drugs with the potential to enable people to survive cancer would not have been possible.

Dr Mark Matfield, scientific co-ordinator of the Association for International Cancer Research pointed out that several highly effective cancer drugs were first discovered as natural compounds.

''However,'' he continued, ''wonderful as Nature is, she is only halfway there when it comes to beating cancer. Often scientists can improve upon Nature's handiwork by tweaking the chemical structure of these molecules, just as Dr Fuchter has discovered with psammaplin A.''


Trending Eco-Friendly Clothing

Love My Planet Women's Relaxed Fit Hoodie
Earth
Quick Add
Close
Notify me
Notify me
Love My Planet Women's Relaxed Fit Hoodie
Love My Planet women's eco-friendly relaxed fit hoodieSize Guide Centimeters 8 10 12 14 16 18 Bust 84 88 92 97 103 108 Waist 66 70 75 80 85 91 Hips 91 95 99 104 109 116 Bust: Measure around the fullest part of...
£38.00
£38.00
Close
Notify me
Notify me
Penguins Hate Push-Ups Men's Pullover Hoodie
Earth
Quick Add
Close
Notify me
Notify me
Penguins Hate Push-Ups Men's Pullover Hoodie
Penguins Hate Push-Ups men's eco-friendly pullover HoodieSize Guide Centimeters XS S M L XL XXL Height 171 175 179 183 189 195 Chest 86 93 99 104 116 129 Waist 71 76 81 89 99 112 Chest: Measure all round your chest just below...
£38.00
£38.00
Close
Notify me
Notify me
Lightning Bolt Kids Long Sleeve T-Shirt
Earth
Quick Add
Close
Notify me
Notify me
Notify me
Lightning Bolt Kids Long Sleeve T-Shirt
Lightning Bolt kids eco-friendly long sleeve t-shirtSize Guide Centimeters 3-4yrs 5-6yrs 7-8yrs 9-10yrs 11-12yrs Height 98 112 125 136 147 Chest 60 66 70 75 84 Chest: Measure all around your chest just below your armpits. Height: Your natural height If you fall between...
£18.00
£18.00
Close
Notify me
Notify me
Notify me
Union Jack Tote Bag
Earth
Quick Add
Close
Notify me
Notify me
Union Jack Tote Bag
Union Jack eco-friendly colour tote bagProduct Specification Organic Cotton Tote Bag. Twill Weave (170gsm). 37 x 42 cm (7cm gusset.) Made in India / Designed on the Isle of Wight. Wash Cool, Hang Dry.
£16.00
£16.00
Close
Notify me
Notify me
Prev Post
Next Post

Eco-Friendly Shop

Women's Clothing

Eco-Friendly Clothing for Women Our online shop offers a wide range of sustainable women’s clothing products, including t-shirts, hoodies, vests, sweaters, shorts, and...
Shop Now

Men's Clothing

Eco-Friendly Clothing for Men Our online shop offers a wide range of sustainable men’s clothing products, including t-shirts, hoodies, vests, sweaters, shorts, and...
Shop Now

Kids Clothing

Eco-Friendly Clothes for Kids Our online shop offers a wide range of sustainable kids clothing products, including t-shirts, hoodies and jumpers. Our garments...
Shop Now
Someone recently bought a
[time] ago, from [location]

Thanks for subscribing!

This email has been registered!

Shop the look

Choose Options

Earth Times
Sign up for exclusive updates, new arrivals & insider only discounts

Recently Viewed

Edit Option
Back In Stock Notification
this is just a warning
Login
Shopping Cart
0 items

Before you leave...

Take 20% off your first order

20% off

Enter the code below at checkout to get 20% off your first order

CODESALE20

Continue Shopping