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UK Colleges of Pharmacy and Agriculture Partner
to Advance Potential New Plant-Based Medicine
LEXINGTON, KY (Sept. 12, 2007) – A collaborative
effort between two colleges at the University of Kentucky,
involving the Kentucky Tobacco Research and Development Center
at UK, holds opportunity to advance a potential new treatment
for a variety of cancers.
Researchers in the College of Pharmacy and the College of
Agriculture together with Leuchemix Inc., a research and
development company based in Northern California, are working
together on the production of the plant “feverfew,” the raw
material for the production of parthenolide.
Previously, Craig Jordan and Peter Crooks at UK developed
drug-like derivatives of parthenolide to further the
pharmaceutical development of this potentially exciting
anti-cancer agent. These novel chemical derivatives which appear
to be particularly relevant to the treatment of leukemia were
licensed to and further developed by Leuchemix Inc.
“However, as these novel drug entities progressed through
preclinical evaluation it became obvious to us and Leuchemix
that we would require a large source of feverfew,” said Crooks,
faculty member and researcher in the UK College of Pharmacy.
This provided the basis for the collaborative input of the
Kentucky Tobacco Research and Development Center (KTRDC) at UK’s
College of Agriculture, allowing them to provide the agronomic
research needed for determining the best methods for growing
feverfew.
“We conducted preliminary experiments at Spindletop Farm and
found that the plant grows spectacularly well in our Kentucky
soils,” said Maelor Davies, KTRDC director. “We were able to
show that the plant can be grown very much like tobacco, using
the same float-bed system to raise seedlings, and then setting
them in the field using vegetable transplanting equipment.”
The KTRDC and UK’s Natural Products Alliance support development
of new and different crops being used in a variety of natural
products. For this feverfew research, funding and complementary
research support were provided by the Alliance and KTRDC.
“Although the research is still at the preclinical stage, we are
very excited about the clinical potential of our lead
parthenolide derivative LC-1. Our collaboration with these two
UK
colleges is helping to advance the work and has the additional
benefit of potentially providing a
new crop to Kentucky’s agricultural industry,” said Bill
Matthews, chief executive officer of Leuchemix.
The KTRDC recently assisted Leuchemix in securing state funding
for larger-scale on-farm production during the 2007 growing
season. It’s hoped this will generate sufficient active
ingredient (parthenolide) for the upcoming clinical trials.
“There’s great potential for people to benefit from this
collaborative effort,” Davies said. “Certainly we hope patients
will benefit from a new treatment for their specific disease,
and of course Kentucky farmers will potentially benefit from a
new crop that could be grown using similar techniques used for
producing burley tobacco.”
According to Davies, discussions are under way with Coldstream
Laboratories Inc. and a Kentucky-based bioprocessing company to
explore aspects of post-harvest processing of feverfew.
“The project also underscores the presence in Kentucky of all
components necessary to advance plant natural products
opportunities, including biomedical research and development,
crop production, plant bioprocessing and medical drug
formulation,” he said. “We’re excited by this synergy of
technologies and capabilities, and the resulting attractiveness
of Kentucky as a prime location for the plant natural products
industry.”
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Contact: Haven Miller, 859-257-4736
Kristi Lopez, 859-323-7601
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The UK College
of Agriculture, through its land-grant mission, reaches across
the commonwealth with teaching, research and extension
to enhance the lives of Kentuckians. |
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