00:00
Images:
Herb crushed
Researcher
Chinese shop exts
CU herbs
ExtsUniversity of Salford
Extraction in lab
Guide Commentary:
Scutellaria barbata, a Chinese herb related to common
garden mint, has been used as an anti–toxin in Traditional
Chinese Medicine since the days of the Yellow Emperor 2000 years
ago. It’s part of a vast resource of natural remedies
that are increasingly attracting western interest, helping the
Chinese pharmaceutical industry to grow by 20% in each of the last
three years. But researchers at the University of
Salford’s Kidscan’s Laboratories are ahead of the
crowd. For twelve years they have been extracting and
researching the active ingredients of this herb in the laboratory,
because one of its uses in Chinese medicine is in the treatment of
Cancer. They have discovered strong scientific reasons for
this by studying the action of this extract on cancerous tumours,
research that has proved so promising, they have just received
funding to take it through to clinical trials.
00:50 Dr Sylvie Ducki, Lecturer in
Medicinal Chemistry, University of Salford
"we were interested in understanding how this active
ingredient was working and what we found out was that it was
targeting the blood vessels around the tumour rather than the
tumour itself which is what conventional chemotherapy is doing,
it’s trying to stop the division of cells in the cancer,
unfortunately this also has side effects because it’s also
effecting normal cells. So far our studies have shown no side
effects and we figured that the treatment would be effective
against about 90% of cancers."
01:30 Images:
Microscope
Magnified cells
Cu computer screen
Drug in action
Cells changing
Guide
Commentary
What they have developed are drugs that work in a new way, they
change the structure of the blood vessels that surround tumours,
cutting off the flow of oxygen and nutrients to the tumour,
literally starving it to death. Filmed through a microscope,
the action of the active ingredients on
The cells surrounding the tumours, is both
rapid and dramatic, the pockmarks appearing on the left, are the
cells changing shape as the drug hits them.
01:54 Professor Alan McGown, Chair of
Drug Design and Director of Kidscan, University of
Salford
Tumour blood vessels are leaky and disorganised, a
cancer needs a blood supply to grow so it sends out all these
messages to actually try and make its own blood supply form from
existing blood supply that the body has. When that happens in a
cancer the blood vessels are growing so quickly that they’re
weak and they’re disorganised which means that those blood
vessels in the cancer because of this weakness are actually much
more susceptible to the effects of the drug and makes the cells
round up and block them.
02:26 Images:
Computer images of proteins
Drug in between proteins
Guide Commentary:
In this illustration the proteins which assemble
into polymers create the shape of the cell, but the drug, the white
area in the middle, inserts itself like a doorstop between them
disturbing the structure, and breaking up the cell.
While cancers can develop resistance to existing
drugs, requiring higher doses and becoming less effective over
time, it is thought that this new range, because it only impacts on
weaker cells surrounding the tumour, will not encounter resistance
in the same way.
And these drugs have other applications too,
particularly in the treatment of disease where the blood vessels
grow rapidly like Endometriosis, a condition which effects
thousands of women in the UK and in conditions caused by
Diabetes.
03:06 Dr Sylvie
Ducki
The drug targets micro vascular and these
conditions like the macro-degeneration is the result of blood
vessels growing in the eye of diabetic patients, eventually they
become blind from this condition so because of the drugs effects on
micro-vasculature or small blood vessels we think it would be an
effective treatment against this condition as well.
03:34 Images:
Kidscan posters and images
Lab work
Cu herb samples
Lab work
Guide Commentary:
With additional funding by the
“Kidscan” charity Dr Sylvie Ducki and her research team
should be able to develop these drugs for clinical trials in about
a year’s time, ensuring they have no toxic side effects, of
which there is so far no sign. This Chinese relative of mint
offers the potential for a range of gentler, more
“natural” drugs, and the prospect of less toxic cancer
treatments, particularly suitable for the treatment of young
children.
04:01 Alan
McGown:
Nature’s had 4 million years to
evolve the most exquisite molecules, no chemist would either think
of making them or could probably even make some of the more
complicated ones but nature’s actually given us the tools,
tools that can have the most exquisite biological effect, many of
which can be turned into drugs. Nature’s got a lot to teach
us.
04:21
Ends
Additional
Material:
Dr Sylvie Ducki Soundbite in French
