Nanocurry vs. Cancer

Biomedicine

(Page 2 of 2)

Tuesday, June 12, 2007
By Ganapati Mudur

Two years ago, a University of California, Los Angeles, team generated other data suggesting that curcumin may be able to treat and prevent Alzheimer's disease. And three years ago, pediatricians at the Yale University School of Medicine showed in animal studies that curcumin can correct a defect associated with a chloride channel in cells that causes the most common form of cystic fibrosis.

"Even with existing free curcumin, we're seeing very encouraging results," says Bharat Bhushan Aggarwal, professor in the department of experimental therapeutics at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and a cofounder of Curry Pharmaceuticals of Research Triangle Park, NC, which is developing curcumin-based drugs.

Over the past year, animal experiments at the Anderson center have demonstrated the efficacy of curcumin in its free form against tumors of the bladder, pancreas, ovaries, and brain.

Aggarwal and his colleagues have also tested curcumin in patients with lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, and multiple myeloma--a type of leukemia--with what he considers encouraging results. "We also know that even in high doses of up to 12 grams per day for several months, curcumin is very, very safe," Aggarwal says. In addition, his team demonstrated earlier this year that curcumin has the ability to enhance the antitumor effect of drugs used to treat pancreatic and bladder cancers.

Such promises notwithstanding, curcumin has yet to be more widely embraced by the medical community because its insoluble form demands high doses. "The single most important reason for the limited use of turmeric in human clinical trials is its poor solubility," Maitra says. Among other things, patients find the aftertaste of huge curcumin doses unbearable.

Now Maitra and his colleagues are about to begin new animal studies in which they will pit nanocurcumin against pancreatic cancer, cystic fibrosis, and Alzheimer's disease. "Nanocurcumin is expected to dramatically improve the clinical potential of this promising drug," says Maitra. And he says that someday, curcumin nanospheres could be decorated with special molecules that have an affinity for cancer cells, allowing the curcumin to home in on specific tumors.