Little Squirt’s Big Potential
By Anne Pawsey
As if being called a sea squirt wasn’t bad enough, a reclusive jelly-like creature has now been hailed as a potential source of cancer fighting drugs. Discovered by divers off the Philippines the slimy creature, Diazona angulata, produces a toxin designed to scare off predators.
Anne's other marvellous articles can be found here. We would put her less good ones there too if there were any. But there aren't. And here are some other great articles:
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Scientists extracted this toxin and somehow discovered it could be used to treat tumours. The only problem it takes half a pound of squirts to get a thimble full of drug. Not good for the squirts, but arguably even worse for researchers since the squirts are extremely very difficult to find.
It took eight years to relocate Diazona after its first foray into medical science – and who can blame it for hiding? So instead researchers tried to copy the compound produced by the squirts so that it could be properly tested.
There is a long history of using animals and plants in medicine, 85% of our anti-bacteria and anti-cancer medicines are natural compounds. Often finding and identifying these compounds isn’t particularly difficult, the tricky part come in making reliable synthetic versions so that a species isn’t destroyed simply to make medicines.
The compound is extremely complicated and it took over ten years for scientists to make a synthetic version. However, this has now been used in tests on cultured cancer cells and in mice. The tests on the cultured cells showed that whilst the compound harmed the cancerous cells it left the healthy ones alone.
The tests in mice were also encouraging, cancerous cells were killed off but the mice did not suffering from nasty side effects commonly associated with anti-cancer drugs. Exactly how this works is still being investigated but it seems that the squirt compound interrupts a chemical that the cancer cells need to reproduce but that normal cells don’t need.
It took eight years to relocate Diazona after its first foray into medical science – and who can blame it for hiding? So instead researchers tried to copy the compound produced by the squirts so that it could be properly tested.
There is a long history of using animals and plants in medicine, 85% of our anti-bacteria and anti-cancer medicines are natural compounds. Often finding and identifying these compounds isn’t particularly difficult, the tricky part come in making reliable synthetic versions so that a species isn’t destroyed simply to make medicines.The compound is extremely complicated and it took over ten years for scientists to make a synthetic version. However, this has now been used in tests on cultured cancer cells and in mice. The tests on the cultured cells showed that whilst the compound harmed the cancerous cells it left the healthy ones alone.
The tests in mice were also encouraging, cancerous cells were killed off but the mice did not suffering from nasty side effects commonly associated with anti-cancer drugs. Exactly how this works is still being investigated but it seems that the squirt compound interrupts a chemical that the cancer cells need to reproduce but that normal cells don’t need.
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Anne's other marvellous articles can be found here. We would put her less good ones there too if there were any. But there aren't. And here are some other great articles:
- Cool - 200kg jellyfish
- Amazing - The third-hand heart transplant
- Satire - Cure for ADHD discovered
- Bizarre - Ring pull injury sorted with metal detector
Image: Thierry Perriot. If you're feeling french then check out Les Amies de la presqu'île de Giens.
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