The availability of commonly-used anti-cancer drugs has been a problem, besides being a reason why they are expensive. The compounds used in them are found in plants, but in limited quantities.

However, scientists from IISc have found a way to multiply these significantly in the lab by irradiating with a kind of ultraviolet radiation.

"Availability of vincristine, vinblastie, taxol and podophyllotoxins used to treat cancer is a problem. These are difficult, expensive and almost impossible to synthesise chemically. However, using biotechnology we can do this using plant cells as a route," said Dr C Jayabhaskaran, who led the team at the department of biotechnology.

"We grew the cells from the plant catharanthus roseus in a large volume in liquid cultures, using bioreactors or fermentors. To increase the biomass, we had some growth factors but to accumulate the product we irradiated it with ultraviolet B rays. We got a significant amount of the plant compound vindoline and catharanthine from the cell culture. They had increased 12-fold and three-fold. These two coupled together form a cancer drug for blood cancer," he explained.

The team is now working on doing the same with a fungus isolated from the taxus celebica.

Wheat grass

Another interesting study on cancer has been conducted by Prof Geetha Vishwanathan and Guruprasad N, in Bangalore. They have shown the efficacy of wheat grass in causing cell degeneration of malignant cervical cancer cells.

Cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy are usually advised to take the seventh-day extract of wheat grass. To investigate the reason, Geetha and Guruprasad treated preserved cancer cells with extracts from the 6th day, 7th day and 8 th day after the grass emerges from the soil.

It was found that the 7th day extract worked best showing a reduction of cancer cell numbers by 96 percent, after a 48-hour incubation.

Geetha is also studying the effect of jackfruit extract on cancer cells. Initial results have shown that the pulp is a good anti-cancer agent, but she is now looking to see what biochemical exactly suppresses the protein in cancer cells, leading to proliferation.