New findings from a group of chemists at the University of New Brunswick could transform the manufacturing process of certain drugs. Collaborating with researchers from Zhejiang and Westlake universities in China, the UNB team uncovered the mechanism by which certain plants produce cancer-fighting medications.
According to Yang Qu, an associate professor of chemistry at UNB leading the research, understanding the plant-based drug production process could lead to significantly faster lab synthesis. The team’s breakthrough revealed a remarkable increase in efficiency, enabling them to produce the drug nearly 1,000 times more effectively than previously reported figures.
Their research, featured in the latest issue of the academic journal Science, focuses on vinblastine, a challenging-to-produce drug utilized in the treatment of various cancers like bladder, brain, and testicular cancer. The drug, sourced exclusively from the Madagascar periwinkle plant, is notoriously inefficient to harvest, requiring 100 kilograms of plant material to yield just one gram of vinblastine.
Qu highlighted the complexity of vinblastine’s synthesis, attributing its difficulty and high costs to its intricate nature. The researchers uncovered that the Madagascar periwinkle employs a unique approach using scaffold proteins to facilitate drug production, unlike the typical enzyme-driven process in plants.
Comparing scaffold proteins to construction site scaffolds, Qu explained that they optimize the drug synthesis process by efficiently organizing the components. By integrating this scaffold protein into the plant’s microbial system, researchers anticipate enhancing production efficiency.
Although the medical breakthrough has not yet translated into expedited drug production, Qu expressed optimism about its potential impact on industrial drug manufacturing. He believes that the research brings industrial production of the drug one step closer to reality, hinting at forthcoming real-world applications stemming from their findings.
