Development opportunity
Romina Znoj, a microbiologist based in the Institute Jožef Stefan, Ljubljana, Slovenia, is looking for backing for the onward development of a novel, patented compound for triggering apoptosis (programmed cell death) in cancer cells. The compound draws on traditional herbal medicines made from extracts of plants of the Solanaceae and Alliaceae family. The patented compound is a mixture of extracts from the two plant families.
It has been tested in various in vitro experiments, including caspase-3 activity, number of apoptotic cells counted with flow cytometry, Western blot on Bax and tBid and shown to trigger apoptosis in MCF-7, HeLa, HepG2 and SH-SY5Y cancer cell lines. There was no effect in control cell lines.
The Slovenian patent is granted, and international patent PCT/SI2007/000042 was published in September 2008. Currently, Znoj is conducting further experiments to determine which molecule(s) in the compound cause apoptosis.
International support is now sought to determine how this invention could be further developed, either as dietary supplement for prevention of cancer, or as a cancer treatment.
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