Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United
States. The discovery then of new classes of drugs to address this constellation
of diseases is critical to mitigating many presently untreatable conditions.
One approach to new drug discovery in this area is the
systematic investigation of marine organisms. They are potential sources of
unique, chemotherapeutically active drug structures.
Researchers at Arizona State University have successfully
isolated glycosphingolipid compounds from the Asian topshell snail Turbo
stenogyrus for the treatment of cancer. Denoted as turbostatin 1 through 4
(depicted below), these compounds exhibit significant growth inhibition of
murine P388 lymphocytic leukemia and were found to be active in a panel of human
cancer cell lines.
Potential Applications
Benefits and Advantages
- New compounds exhibit significant inhibition of cancer
cell growth.
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For more information about the inventor(s) and their
research, please see
Dr.
Pettit's departmental webpage
