OU team Develops Cancer-Fighting Compound

Oklahoma researchers have discovered a new cancer-fighting compound which, researchers hope, will one day be taken like a multivitamin daily to prevent cancer. The discovery was universally acknowledged for its potential to revolutionize cancer prevention and treatment. Darrell Berlin, Regents Professor of chemistry at Oklahoma State University, developed the compound in collaboration with faculty at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.

Berlin’s research group that dealt in bioorganic chemistry designed the molecules to treat types of cancer cells. He was collaborating with Dr. Doris M. Benbrook, a molecular biologist and biochemist at the OU Health Sciences Center, on the development of the agent.

The agent has components resembling products made by the human body and it is very slightly related to Vitamin A. The compound was originally designed to activate cell receptors. However, it was observed that the agent does not activate receptors and actually destroys cancer cells.

Berlin’s research group came to learn through Dr. Benbrook’s biological work that the compound had very little effect on normal cells and destroyed many of the cancer cells. In fact, it destroyed 11 different types of cancer cells. It is particularly applicable for kidney, ovarian and liver cancer cells.

Berlin and Benbrook have patented the compound. The National Cancer Institute has already administered millions of dollars in funding to third-party researchers to carry out further research. Benbrook and her team of researchers have been trying to find ways to stop cancer for about 17 years. She had a chemist altering the chemical structure of vitamin A one atom at a time. She would test each new compound to determine if it prevented cancer cells from multiplying. She was trying to find something that would kill cancer cells without harming normal cells.

Benbrook said the research is only in its initial stage and there is a long way to go. It is yet to be proved whether it's going to work in people. But in the laboratory the compound successfully prevented a number of cancers such as ovarian cancer, kidney cancer, colon cancer, melanoma, colon cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer, brain cancer, prostate cancer, leukemia, esophageal cancer, cervical cancer, liver cancer and endometrial cancer.