A potential cancer drug developed from an Australian rainforest plant is set to progress to human trials after fighting off inoperable tumours in pets, the company behind it said on Monday.
Queensland firm QBiotics Limited said its EBC-46, derived from the seeds of a tropical rainforest shrub, was ready to be tested on humans after successfully treating solid tumours in more than 100 dogs, cats and horses.
“We’ve treated over 150 animals ... With a variety of tumours and we’re prepared to move into human studies,” chief executive Dr Victoria Gordon told AFP.
Dr Gordon said the results so far indicated the drug could work to counter a range of malignant growths, such as skin cancers, head and neck cancer, breast cancer and prostate cancer. She said the drug works like a detonator inside tumours, prompting inactive beneficial white cells to begin to fight and destroy the cancer.
The company has spent six years developing the drug since the previously unknown molecule in the native Australian plant blushwood was discovered.
Dr Gordon said the compound proves the value of retaining Australia’s unique tropical rainforests.
“The world’s rainforests are an amazing biological resource which we need to conserve and cherish,” she said in a statement.
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US puts India on trafficking watchlist again
Arun Kumar
Washington
The United States has placed India on its second worst category on human trafficking for the seventh consecutive year, saying the latter has done significant work on sex trafficking, but not enough to check labour trafficking.
“The government of India does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking,” said the US state department in its 10th annual Trafficking in Persons Report released on Monday. “However, it is making significant efforts to do so, particularly with regard to the law enforcement response to sex trafficking,” acknowledged the report released by secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
—IANS