IBN's principal research scientist and team leader, Dr Motoichi Kurisawa, who is from Hokkaido in Japan, made the latest discovery.
IBN's principal research scientist and team leader, Dr Motoichi Kurisawa, who is from Hokkaido in Japan, made the latest discovery. He said his eureka moment stemmed from his own love of green tea, which led him to wonder whether the health benefits of green tea could be one reason the Japanese have long life expectancies.
"From there, we had the idea to develop new biomaterials from green tea, which could be used as drug carriers for difficult-to-cure diseases such as cancer," he said.
Using EGCG to manufacture a drug nanocarrier has two main benefits. First, it reduces damage to healthy cells, which are often killed during traditional chemotherapy. The nanocarrier cannot squeeze into the tiny pores of healthy blood vessels, which are only about two to three nanometres wide. A nanometer is a billionth of a metre. Pores at tumour sites, however, are over 100 times larger, so the EGCG missiles can easily slip through to deposit their payload of tumour-killing drugs, while themselves killing off more harmful cells.
In tests on mice, toxic anti-cancer drugs, which typically damage the liver and kidney, were lowered by up to 70 per cent in these organs when delivered through this method, he noted. IBN has filed a patent on the green tea nanocarrier and is developing the technology for use in patients. Plans to continue the research on large animals are in the pipeline, and the institute is also in discussions with companies to commercialise the technology.
Said Professor Ying: "Our green tea nanocarrier not only delivers protein drugs more effectively to the cancer cells, but the combination of carrier and drug also dramatically reduced tumour growth compared with the drug alone.
"This is an exciting breakthrough in nanomedicine."
IBN's principal research scientist and team leader, Dr Motoichi Kurisawa, who is from Hokkaido in Japan, made the latest discovery.
He said his eureka moment stemmed from his own love of green tea, which led him to wonder whether the health benefits of green tea could be one reason the Japanese have long life expectancies.
"From there, we had the idea to develop new biomaterials from green tea, which could be used as drug carriers for difficult-to-cure diseases such as cancer," he said.
Using EGCG to manufacture a drug nanocarrier has two main benefits. First, it reduces damage to healthy cells, which are often killed during traditional chemotherapy. The nanocarrier cannot squeeze into the tiny pores of healthy blood vessels, which are only about two to three nanometres wide. A nanometer is a billionth of a metre. Pores at tumour sites, however, are over 100 times larger, so the EGCG missiles can easily slip through to deposit their payload of tumour-killing drugs, while themselves killing off more harmful cells.
In tests on mice, toxic anti-cancer drugs, which typically damage the liver and kidney, were lowered by up to 70 per cent in these organs when delivered through this method, he noted.
IBN has filed a patent on the green tea nanocarrier and is developing the technology for use in patients. Plans to continue the research on large animals are in the pipeline, and the institute is also in discussions with companies to commercialise the technology.
Said Professor Ying: "Our green tea nanocarrier not only delivers protein drugs more effectively to the cancer cells, but the combination of carrier and drug also dramatically reduced tumour growth compared with the drug alone.
"This is an exciting breakthrough in nanomedicine."
Source: The Straits Times Singapore Press Holdings Limited. Reproduced with permission.
