Professor Hergenrother, Karen Morrison (graduate student), and coworkers at MIT have synthesized and tested several dozen compounds that may hold promise as potential cancer drugs. In the new study, recently published online in the journal Chemical Science, the researchers tested 60 compounds against two different human cancer cell lines -- cervical cancer and lymphoma. Then they chose the best 25 to test against three additional lines, from lung, kidney and breast tumors. Overall, dimeric compounds -- those with two epipolythiodiketopiperazine (ETP) molecules joined together -- appeared to be more effective at killing cancer cells than single molecules (known as monomers).
The compounds that kill cancer cells appear to be very selective, destroying them 1,000 times more effectively than they kill healthy blood cells.
The research was funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.