IICB team finds herb-based cure for leukaemia

Kolkata, July 30: A group of scientists in CSIR here have claimed to have made a major breakthrough in cancer studies when they struck upon a molecule in betel (paan) leaf that targets and kills leukaemia cells and holds the promise of becoming the world’s first herb-based, cheap therapeutic drug for blood cancer.

A multi-disciplinary team from CSIR’s premier lab Indian Institute of Chemical Biology (IICB) here is ecstatic with the serendipitous find since there is just one exorbitant drug currently available across the world for the treatment of Chronic Myelogenous Leukaemia (CML), a severe type of blood cancer.

The molecule, identified as chlorogenic acid, codenamed icb-101, throughout the three-year hush-hush study, came as a chance discovery while the team was conducting immuno-modulatory studies on betel leaf and its effect on human cell lines.

“We found that chlorogenic acid induced programmed cell death in human cancer cells transplanted in experimental nude mice,” immunologist and team leader Santu Bandyopadhyay said here today.

The 12-member team, comprising IICB director and cell biologist Prof Samir Bhattacharya, drug designer Chhabinath Mandal, medical chemist Bikas Pal, animal scientist Aditya Konar, haematologists Dillip Bhattacharya and Utpal Chaudhuri and a number of laboratory aides, has applied for US and global patents for the molecule. (Agencies)

http://www.newsonweb.com/chennaionline/newsitem.asp?NEWSID=%7B48228296-E82F-4907-88C1-8E03523900B6%7D&CATEGORYNAME=HEAL