U of W team finds lab cancer killer
Compounds synthesized to mimic properties of the spider lily plant
University of Windsor researchers have identified a “stellar” cancer killer that works better — in the lab — than chemotherapy, without doing damage to healthy cells.
The “high therapeutic potential” of several similar compounds, synthesized in a lab to mimic the cancer-killing properties found in the common spider lily plant, is the subject of a research paper published this week in the online journal nature.com.
“These compounds had extreme selectivity — healthy cells were not affected and cancer cells were fried, they were all killed,” biochemistry professor Siyaram Pandey said Wednesday as he described the great potential for these compounds. “I have big hopes with this.” He believes the research provides “light at the end of the tunnel, that there are other ways to develop cancer therapies,” other than highly toxic chemo.
The compounds were synthesized by scientists at Brock and McMaster universities to copy and accentuate the cancer-killing properties of pancratistatin, a natural compound found in spider lily. The scientists created seven versions and following testing, three of them showed great effectiveness killing cancer cells.
In Pandey’s Windsor lab, lead researcher Dennis Ma and his team of undergraduates tested the compounds on 20 different kinds of cancer, including brain, skin, colon and pancreatic. The three compounds killed all of them, in lab-cultured cancer samples and in mice.
“Our hope is it might have similar effects on humans,” said Ma, a Windsor native and Kennedy high school graduate who recently received his PhD and is now doing post-doctorate work at the University of California, Irvine.
“It’s been my life for the last five years, and it wasn’t just me,” Ma said in a phone interview as he walked across the California campus, crediting his team of undergraduates.
“It was a lot of work, a lot of late nights, a lot of holidays and weekends. But it’s really cool to see it’s come to fruition now.”
Pandey and his team have been working since 2005 on pancratistatin, demonstrating its cancer-killing properties. But the problem with the natural compound was it was hard to acquire. To get five milligrams required five kilograms of dried spider lily buds, said Pandey, whose previous research has focused on natural cancer-killing compounds such as those found in dandelion roots and long pepper fruit.
“It was one part per million, so that was the bottleneck” that stymied further research into pancratistatin, Pandey said. Once Brock’s Tomas Hudlicky and McMaster’s James McNulty came up with synthetic versions, Ma and his team began their comprehensive research.
“It took a long time,” Pandey said. “Unfortunately, we were not getting it funded,” by the big government funders.
So Pandey relied on local contributors including; the family of Kevin Couvillon, who died in 2010 after battling leukemia; Knights of Columbus Council 9671 in St. Clair Beach; the Pajama Angels; and 100 People Who Care Windsor-Essex.
The publication of the paper represents the most comprehensive study of the compounds, their anticancer effects and the mechanisms of how they work.
“The important thing about this paper is that three of those synthetic compounds were stellar, they were 10 times better than the natural compound,” Pandey said. And they were even “much better” than chemo drugs currently used, he added.
He and Ma explained that these compounds attack cancer differently than conventional chemotherapy, which kill both cancer and healthy cells. The new compounds target the cancer cell’s mitochondria, the cell’s “nuclear power plant” that supplies it with energy.
“We believe cancer cells have bad mitochondria and if we target that mitochondria we can kill the cancer cells without affecting the healthy cells because healthy cells have good mitochondria,” Pandey explained.
Ma said that when the compounds target the mitochondria, they are actually able to activate a kind of suicide program in the cancer cells. However, this effect still needs to be demonstrated in humans, and that’s a long way off.
Further research will cost “millions and millions,” according to Pandey, who said his years of research on dandelion root extract has been much less costly because the product is natural and has long been used by humans.
“With this one, it’s a pure compound, there’s no literature showing if a person takes it how he or she will react,” he said. So he’s hoping the paper published this week will attract the attention of a big
The important thing about this paper is that three of those synthetic compounds were stellar.
biopharmaceutical firm capable of bankrolling more research.
“I am hopeful, but when it comes to private companies and big biopharma companies, money is their god,” Pandey said.
“They do their business analysis and then they will see whether it is worth developing or not.”