Study Says Researchers Find Anti-cancer Medicine in Wild Plant

Researchers have found the plant “Dittirichia viscose”, known as elecampe, can be used to obtain inhibitors of neurogenic vasodilatation, a significant progress in migraine and cancer treatments.

Scientists working at the Department of Organic Chemistry and the Biotechnology Institute of the University of Granada discovered that the plant “Dittirichia viscose”, which is popularly known as elecampe, can be used to obtain inhibitors of neurogenic vasodilatation, a significant progress in migraine and cancer treatments. The press release says that the study was supervised by professors María del Mar Herrador tand Alejandro Fernández Barrero and has been carried out by Julieta Verónica Catalán, assistant professor of the National University of Tucuman (Argentina) and researcher of the Universidad de Granada,. The study was financed by the Unión Europea through the Programa Alban and the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología. Julieta Verónica used the elecampe plant, abundant in the Mediterranean area, to obtain a method for taking out and purifying a natural product known as ilicic acid. This acid has been used to develop an effective method of chemical synthesis and of industrial interest towards the pharmacologically active &-eudesmol (against migraine) and ß-eudesmol which inhibits “in vivo” selectively, the proliferation of endothelial cells, being a promising antiangiogenic. As well, the research team made another important discovery: they have used the germacrona compound, obtained from the ‘Baccharis latifolia’, a plant growing in the Bolivian Andes, in a new chemical synthesis of the antitumoral ß-element. This product can inhibit, selectively, the vascular endothelial brain cells. It has been used as an agent to prevent cancer in brain tumours and metastases from brain and lung cancer, preventing its growth. In addition, it has been proven that it leads to apoptosis and stops the cellular differentiation process and inhibits neoplasm metastases, so it can be used in lung neoplasm chemotherapy as well as in colon, stomach or brain chemotherapy, etc. There are several patented formulas for its use alone or combined with other agents such as taxol, 5- Fu or stemmed from cisplatin.