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While modern medical science has a spectacular track record of diagnosing,
treating, and in many cases eradicating diseases that once killed or
debilitated millions, still no cure is in sight for many of cancer's most
common and deadly forms.
University of Oregon chemistry professor
Bruce
Branchaud (Bran-show) is one of the thousands of scientists worldwide
working to stop the crab.
What does chemistry have to do with fighting cancer?
BB: Many promising anticancer compounds are known to exist in nature. But
extracting even a small amount of a naturally occurring compound can sometimes
be difficult, prohibitively expensive, or might not produce enough of the
compound to be practically useful. It can make more sense to produce the
compound in a chemistry laboratory. Cancer researchers need a ready supply of a
potentially useful compound before they can assess its potency and clinical
value.
Are there other applications of chemistry to cancer research?
BB: An equally critical contribution of chemistry is the creation of
variations, or analogs, of a promising compound. The difference in chemical
structure between a compound and an analog of it may be slight, but the
difference in action--for example in its ability to stop the growth of a
tumor--may be profound. Part of my work is developing new strategies and
methods to efficiently create analog compounds, many of which have never
existed before.
Would you describe some of your cancer-related research?
BB: One piece of work comes with an interesting history. Plants related to
daffodils have been used in folk medicine as a cancer treatment as far back as
the fourth century B.C. Modern science has isolated several potent anticancer
compounds from a particular daffodil. The most potent compound is called
pancratistatin.
Unfortunately, extracting pancratistatin is difficult--one process takes forty
days of work--and the yield is skimpy. One-hundred-and-fifty pounds of daffodil
bulbs can yield just a little more than a thumbtack's weight of pancratistatin.
We are developing a relatively straightforward synthesis of pancratistatin
from a simple and inexpensive sugar, D-glucose. The goal of this project is to
make the creation of much larger amounts feasible and to allow the production
of analogs of pancratistatin for testing as improved anticancer agents.
In these days of highly competitive research funding, why do funders support
your work?
BB: Granting agencies are interested in supporting chemists who are developing
fundamentally new methods to synthesize organic compounds, and especially those
researchers whose methods might help solve practical problems. That's us.
What is the most satisfying part of your work?
BB: Creating new compounds that, to our knowledge, have never previously
existed is "going where no one has gone before." I like that. Also, training
the next generation of scientists is satisfying. Students trained in my lab
have gone on to become university professors, research scientists at
pharmaceutical and biotech firms; they have earned fellowships from the
National Institutes of Health. As the years go by, society will reap the
rewards of their work.
What's ahead in the world of organic synthesis?
BB: There are things we can do today that couldn't be done ten years ago. In
another ten years additional fundamental advances in the area of organic
synthesis will yield new medicines and useful new materials, to name just a few
things with a big payoff for society.