00.00 Cu
Wok in Thai restaurant kitchen
Galangal
roots foreground Thai cooking
Galangal
added to wok
Soup
stirred
Soup
in bowl
Cu
aspirin poured bark and aspirin
Exts
King's College London
MS
Professor Houghton with plant samples
CU
plant samples
Guide Voice: Could a Thai cooking ingredient
provide a new approach to cancer treatment? Galangal, the ginger
like root that is routinely used to flavour Thai soups and curries
has been found to have properties that may prevent or treat cancer
according to researchers from King's College, London.
That a natural resource could have an important role to play in
medicine today is not as unlikely as it first appears. In fact
almost one in four medicines on the market today are based on
substances found in plants, or synthetic derivatives of them.
Aspirin, probably the world's best-known drug, discovered at the
end of the 19th century was synthesised based on a compound found
in willow bark, and there are new examples all the time.
At King's College, London, Peter Houghton, Professor of
Pharmacognosy, has been studying the chemical and pharmacological
bases of natural substances used in traditional medicines for over
thirty years.
Amongst his discoveries are that curry leaves have anti-diabetic
properties, and that sage has a beneficial effect on memory, and
may play a role in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease.
01.02 SOT: Peter Houghton, Professor of Pharmacognosy,
King's College London - "The work we do is really
continuing what human beings have been doing since the dawn of
history because the earliest written manuscripts we have talk about
medicinal plants and we are extending that and pushing forward and
I'm a firm believer in the fact that we've still got interesting
drugs to find from nature."
01.23 WS
Researcher at work
cu
bubbling liquid
Tilt
down tube
Over
shoulder researcher testing extracts
Galangal
foreground
Guide Voice: In King's College's pharmacy
department PhD students examine traditional remedies for a variety
of illnesses from around the globe.
Plant extracts are analysed and purified compounds are isolated
to discover whether there is a scientific basis for their medicinal
reputation. Among those brought in for testing was galangal.
01.43 SOT: Peter Houghton - "We came
across galangal because it was one of a group of plants that one of
my students starting her PhD project was looking at. She was
interested in plants from Malaysia and related parts of South East
Asia which were used to treat cancer. And when we looked at
galangal we found that it was quite active in the test systems that
we were using."
02.11 Pullout
from King's college logo on lab coat
Researcher
adding liquid to test samples
Cu
adding liquid
WS
adding liquid
Guide Voice: They used a cell - based assay,
which shows whether a compound will kill cancer cells rather than
normal cells. In tests, "lesser Galangal" proved the most
effective extract in killing cancer cells, but they also made
another discovery.
02.25 SOT: Dr CC Lee, Postgraduate
Student 1999 - 2003, King's College London - "We
tested galangal for its ability to kill a couple of cancer cell
lines and also a normal human cell line we also looked at
galangal's ability to induce a particular enzyme called GST. GST is
an enzyme that is able to detoxify carcinogens, so any substance
that has the ability to do that is very exciting
indeed."
03.01 SOT Professor Peter Houghton
- "Galangal is interesting because it does kill
cancer cells in preference to healthy cells but also it does boost
healthy cells own defence, so with many plants you find that
they've got one of these activities or the other but its not that
common to find the two together like there appears to be in
galangal."
03.21 CU
test samples placed into testing machine
GV
Chinatown
Exts
Asian supermarket
Pan
over produce
Guide Voice: King's College's findings are in
line with those of a Japanese study on mice, in which it proved
similarly effective in treating cancer. While galangal is freely
available in Asian shops around the world, they are not
recommending that people buy it as an anti-cancer treatment. There
is still a long way to go before its effectiveness is tested on
people.
03.41 SOT Dr CC Lee -
"I expect the next stage forward will be looking at a
broader range of in vitro activities of this plant and then
hopefully take it on to in vivo level."
03.53 End
Additional Material:
WS researchers and extraction device
CU extraction device
04.05 ends
