According to a University of Waterloo researcher, the avocado, deliciously nutritious with a wide range of benefits is the new answer to beating leukemia.
Professor Paul Spagnuolo from the University of Waterloo has identified a compound in avocados that could potentially treat leukemia by attacking the root of the disease – the stem cells.
The acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a fatal disease within five years for 90 per cent of seniors over age 65. According to the professor Spagnuolo, a new avocado-derived drug could significantly increase life expectancy and quality of life for AML patients thanks to the lipids found in avocado.
“The stem cell is really the cell that drives the disease,” stated Spagnuolo. “The stem cell is largely responsible for the disease developing and it’s the reason why so many patients with leukemia relapse. We’ve performed many rounds of testing to determine how this new drug works at a molecular level and confirmed that it targets stem cells selectively, leaving healthy cells unharmed.”
Spagnuolo’s research is published in Cancer Research, with the partnership of the Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine (CCRM). He has also filed a patent application for the use of the compound, named avocatin B, which can treat patients with leukemia.
“It’s an exciting time for our lab. With the help of CCRM we are now pursuing commercial partnership that would take avocatin B into clinical trials,” said Professor Spagnuolo. “Not only does avocatin B eliminate the source of AML, but its targeted, selective effects make it less toxic to the body, too.”
The drug is still waiting to be approved for use in oncology clinics, but Spagnuolo is performing experiments to prepare the drug for a Phase I clinical trial. This is the first round of trials where people diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia could have access to the drug.
Source: uwaterloo.ca