The seeds of the berry from the Blushwood tree have been shown to rapidly kill cancer tumours by scientists under Dr.Glen Boyle at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Australia; the tree is only found in the Rainforest around the Atherton Tablelands in Northern Queensland. Now Stamford Researchers claim 'breakthrough' in active ingredient EBC-46 production.
Australian scientists isolate fast acting cancer ’drug’ from the Blushwood Tree Berry
A team of cancer scientists at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Australia have extracted a compound from seeds contained in the berry of the Blushwood tree (Fontainea picrosperma) and shown they are rapidly effective against cancer in real life. The tree only grows in the Atherton Tablelands, an area of Rainforest in the North of Queensland.
N.B. Taking an extract of the natural berry and encapsulating it, or making a concentrate for injection, immediately confers on it the title ‘drug’.
The development work (
1) is being overseen by Dr. Glen Boyle and the ‘drug’ is being called EBC-46. His experiments started in 2014 with melanoma models as well as cancers of the head, neck and colon. In most cases a single injection starts killing the cancer off in 4-5 hours making this really a ‘wonder’ treatment. EBC-46’s target is a key enzyme called protein kinase C, or PKC.
Find more on protein kinases and cancer here.
Tigilanol tiglate is the name of the natural compound that appears in the seeds of the pink fruit of the Blushwood tree, Fontainea picrosperma. Kangaroos that eat blushwood fruit avoid the seeds, which when ingested, trigger vomiting and diarrhoea.
Although this kills cancer tumours, there is no evidence to date that this can deal with metastatic cancer.
EBC-46 Drug produces purpling around tumour within just 5 minutes
Early studies looked at cancers in cats, dogs and horses. Dr. Boyle says that the results are impressive – the drug starts working instantly, producing a purpling around the area of the tumour within 5 minutes. 24 hours later and the tumour is black, and a few days later the tumour falls off.
Boyle says the compound works in three ways – it cuts off the blood supply, it kills the tumour and activates the immune system to clear the mess up.
In more than 70% of the pre-clinical animal model cases, the response and cure were long-term and ‘enduring’ with little or no relapse.
The work then moved on to include colon, breast and prostate cancers, and the results showed a 75% success rate.
Formal Veterinary clinical trials are already taking place in Australia and America, led by the Brisbane biotechnology company, Qbiotics, having been handed on by EcoBiotics, the company that discovered the potential properties berry seeds originally.
Human trials of Blushwood berry ingredient successful
In 2015/6 QBiotics moved on to Human trials; 8 different patients with 4 different cancers were treated across Australia. The cancers - melanoma, squamous cell carcinoma, basal cell carcinoma and breast adenocarcinoma, were all beaten. Dr. Victoria Gordon, CEO of QBiotics said that none of the patients showed any side-effects (1).
“It’s proving our theory that it’s not species-specific, and it’s not tumour-specific either, because it’s actually working in a range of tumours,” said Gordon. With 11 more patient trials under her belt, she feels the drug will be commercially available within 4 years. The drug is already close to approval for the Veterinary market – the initial trials in America have led to further approvals.
Already, people are trying to grow the plant at home and make home-made recipes; so much so that nurseries in Cairns have run out of trees. The berries are actually poisonous, so this doesn’t sound a good idea anyway.
Chris Woollams, former Oxford University Biochemist and founder of CANCERactive added, "Back in 2017, I added that 'We can only hope that QBiotics gains the approvals needed and controls the delivery of the product itself'. But the main problem was volume. This natural chemotherapy could only be obtained from one bush in one part of a Rainforest in one part of Australia. Fortunately, Stamford researchers took an interest'.
FDA and European Agencies give Approval
Injecting just small doses of EBC-46 directly into tumours causes activation of PKC which prompts the tumour breakdown. In 2020, both the European Medicines Agency and the FDA in the USA, approved an EBC-46–based medication (Stelfonta), to treat mast cell cancer - the most common skin tumour in dogs. One study showed a 75% cure rate after a single injection with an 88% cure rate after two. Clinical trials have moved on to humans for skin, head and neck, and soft tissue cancers.
Now Stamford Researchers claim 'Breakthrough' in EBC-46 production
The natural compound Tigilanol tiglate works by promoting a localised immune response against tumors. This causes a degradation of the tumour’s blood vessels and then kills the cancer cells.
But a further problem was that EBC-46 appeared to be impossible to produce synthetically leaving nature as the only limited source. However, in 2022, Stanford researchers (2) found a way to chemically replicate the plant-based material into synthetic analogs of EBC-46. Analogs also concentrate the compound's active power and the researchers are suggesting that EBC-46 could be effective against diseases such as AIDS, multiple sclerosis, and Alzheimer’s disease, which all share biological pathways impacted by EBC-46’s target, protein kinase C.
Describing this as a 'Breakthrough', “We are very excited to report the first scalable synthesis of EBC-46,” said Dr. Paul Wender lead author of the Study.
Obviously, no clinical data yet exists on the analogs for side-effects. How long this will take to get approval after Clinical trials is another question.
Go to: Another natural chemotherapy - Phycocyanin
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References
1. Cancer tumours destroyed by berry from Queensland Rain Forest - https://dailyhealthpost.com/blushwood-cancer-cure/
2. Practical synthesis of the therapeutic leads tigilanol tiglate and its analogues; Paul A. Wender, Zachary O. Gentry, David J. Fanelli, Quang H. Luu-Nguyen, Owen D. McAteer & Edward Njoo; Nature Chemistry volume 14,1421–1426 (2022)