Students at the University of Findlay College of Pharmacy may have found a way to battle, and beat, an aggressive form of brain cancer.
Until now, it has been difficult to get medicine to attack the cancer cells but keep the normal cells safe when a patient has been diagnosed with glioblastomas, WTOL reported.
Glioblastoma forms on the brain or spinal cord, and because of the location, it can be difficult to surgically remove, WCMH reported.
There's only a 10%, five-year survival rate for patients diagnosed with glioblastoma, according to WTOL.
But students were testing compounds and found one that will target only cancer cells and ignore healthy ones. And the compound, called Chalcone, is found in the most unlikely of places, Indan curry, WCMH reported. The technical name of what the team found is RK-15, WTOL reported.
Jacob Reyes is a fifth-year pharmacy student at the University of Findlay who studied the treatments. He says the RK-15 compound is 100 times more selective than others at finding and destroying only cancer cells, WTOL reported.
Reyes attributes the success at finding a potential treatment, while still a student, to the university itself.
"I think one of the great things about Findlay is that it's one of those small schools where you can kind of get a more one-on-one interaction with your professors and have an easier time getting the opportunity to get in the lab and make drug compounds like this that may someday make a difference," Reyes told WTOL.
The compound will next be tested on animals, and if successful, it could be tested on human cancer patients, according to WTOL.
It may take 10 to 15 years for the treatment to be available to patients, WCMH reported.
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