Blue Green Algae is Source of Anti-Cancer Gold
January 12, 2007 by Gloria Gamat
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
An exciting class of anti-cancer drugs originally isolated from blue-green algae have been produced by University if Michigan scientists by combining synthetic chemistry techniques and enzymology.
This trick of turning the green gunk into anti-cancer gold has been featured in the cover of the January issue of the journal ACS Chemical Biology, in a study led by University of Michigan Life Sciences Institute Research Professor David H. Sherman and researcher Zachary Q. Beck.
In Dr. Sherman’s words:
“It was simply too difficult to use the native blue-green algae for high-level production using traditional fermentation approaches. But the compound, called cryptophycin 1, held so much promise as an anti-cancer drug that organic chemists got busy trying to find ways to make a synthetic form of the compound in large enough quantities for clinical trials.
The findings in this study are expected to lead into producing enough of the promising drugs for use in clinical trials.
Find more details from the press release.
