Honokiol strikes again!

A July 14 Science Daily article (see: http://tinyurl.com/5dy7xo) tells us that honokiol, extracted from the magnolia tree and used in Eastern traditional medicine for a variety of ailments, has recently (?) been found to target tumors with activated Ras. And Ras refers to a family of genes whose mutation stimulates the growth of several types of cancers. Although the Ras family is mutated in around a third of human cancers, medicinal chemists have considered it an intractable target.

 

Is Ras active in myeloma, too? I will give you one guess. wink smiley Then you can go read this 2004 abstract: http://tinyurl.com/5sz6z7. Or this 2006 “Blood” study where we find that Oncogenic RAS expression occurs in up to 40% of multiple myeloma (MM) magnolia flowercases and correlates with aggressive disease: http://tinyurl.com/6otz4y. I rest my case.

 

Toward the end of the Science Daily article we read that Emory University is in the process of licensing honokiol and related compounds so that they can be tested in people in cooperation with industry partners. Let’s hope that this will happen soon. In the meantime, I am going to enjoy the view of my magnolia tree from my study window…

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