S&T Watch-27: "Accidental Fungal Growth leads to Cancer Drug"

A drug developed using nanotechnology and a fungus that contaminated a lab experiment may be broadly effective against a range of cancers, US researchers reported.

The drug, called lodamin, was improved in one of the last experiments overseen by Judah Folkman, a cancer researcher who died in January. Folkman pioneered the idea of angiogenesis therapy - starving tumours by preventing them from growing blood supplies.

Lodamin is an angiogenesis inhibitor that Folkman's team has been working to perfect for 20 years. His colleagues say they developed a formulation that works as a pill, without side-effects, reports New Scientist.

Tests in mice showed it worked against a range of tumours, including breast cancer, neuoblastoma, ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, brain tumours known as glioblastomas and uterine tumours.

It helped stop so-called primary tumours and also prevented their spread, Ofra Benny of Children's Hospital, Boston, and Harvard Medical School and and colleagues reported.

"Using the oral route of administration, it first reaches the liver, making it especially efficient in preventing the development of liver metastasis in mice," they wrote in their report. "Liver metastasis is very common in many tumour types and is often associated with a poor prognosis and survival rate," they added.

The drug was known experimentally as TNP-470, and was isolated from a fungus called Aspergillus fumigatus fresenius.

Harvard's Donald Ingber discovered the fungus by accident while trying to grow endothelial cells - the cells that line blood vessels. The mold affected the cells in a way known to prevent the growth of tiny blood vessels known as capillaries - Reuters.

Excerpt from "Accidental Fungal Growth Results in New Cancer Drug" that appeared in The Times of India, Chennai, July 1, 2008.

Grateful thanks to Reuters and The Times of India.