Can all plant-based anti-cancer ingredients be synthesized in the lab?
We could go on and on about anti-cancer ingredients found in plants, vegetables and fruits but we all know that most anti-cancer ingredients found in plant extracts won’t have the beneficial effects unless we eat a daily truck-load of such plant of fruit.
It is in this situation that such ingredients needed to be extracted from it source and made into a stable form in a capsule or juice drink for example that we can easily take orally.
But what if only small amounts can be extracted even from loads amount of the said plant source? If the said anti-cancer compounds cannot be synthesized in the lab, that will be the dead-end of the said anti-cancer compound even if how potent it is in fighting or killing cancer.
That is exactly the case of two potent, but rare naturally occurring molecules named episilvestrol and silvestrol that fortunately researchers at the University of Melbourne and collaborators at the Victorian College of Pharmacy and a Melbourne company (formally Cerylid Biosciences) have achieved the chemical synthesis of.
These compounds were originally isolated in small quantities from several species of Aglaia which is a small woody shrub that grows in Malaysia and other parts of S.E. Asia.
The drug has potential for treatment of colon cancer as it shows activity against several human cancer cells lines and has been shown to shrink tumours in tests.
But then another set back I can think of is if the synthetic form will work in the same way that the natural form works. Let us hope that they actually do. And if they do, let us hope that all naturally occurring anti-cancer compounds can be synthesized.
Find more details from the University of Melbourne.
Tags: anti-cancer-compounds, lab-synthesis, plant-extractRelated Stories
POSTED IN: on anti-cancer ingredients
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