New research led by chemists right here in New Brunswick changes the way pharmaceutical companies manufacture life saving cancer drugs. A team at the University of New Brunswick teamed up with researchers at Zhejiang and Westlake universities in China to unlock a major botanical secret. They discovered exactly how certain plants produce cancer fighting compounds.

According to a recent report from CBC News, this breakthrough allows scientists to recreate these drugs in a lab environment at a much faster rate. Yang Qu, an associate professor of chemistry at UNB and the lead researcher on the project, notes a massive leap in production capabilities.

“We discovered that the efficiency has so much improved, in fact, that we could produce this drug nearly 1,000 times higher than previously reported values,” Qu said.

The academic magazine Science published these findings this month.

The Challenge with Vinblastine

The research focuses on a specific drug called vinblastine. Doctors use vinblastine to treat several types of cancer, including bladder, brain and testicular cancer.

However, pharmaceutical companies struggle to manufacture this drug. Only one plant species on earth produces it. That plant is the Madagascar periwinkle.

While the flowering plant holds the key to the drug, it produces very little of the active ingredient. Qu explained that it takes 100 kilograms of dry plant material to yield just one single gram of vinblastine. The plant is highly inefficient at making it. The drug also features a complex structure, making chemical synthesis in a lab both difficult and expensive.

Scaffold Proteins Speed Up the Process

The UNB team solved the mystery of how the Madagascar periwinkle creates the drug. In most plants, enzymes act as catalysts for chemical reactions to create drugs. The Madagascar periwinkle takes a different approach. It uses a scaffold protein to gather the necessary components.

Qu compares these proteins to the scaffolds you see on a construction site.

“The workers are better arranged because of this scaffold protein. Therefore the construction is a lot more efficient and much quicker,” Qu said.

What This Means for the Future

Scientists now insert this specific scaffold protein into a microbial system. This step drastically improves the efficiency of the entire manufacturing process.

While this medical advance has not yet resulted in immediate mass production, it brings industrial scale manufacturing closer to reality.

“I think in the near future we should be able to see some real world application out of this research,” Qu said.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is vinblastine?
Vinblastine is a drug used to treat various forms of cancer, including brain, bladder and testicular cancer.

Why is vinblastine hard to produce?
Only the Madagascar periwinkle plant produces vinblastine naturally. The plant yields very small amounts of the drug, requiring 100 kilograms of dry plant material to produce just one gram.

What did UNB researchers discover?
The researchers found that the Madagascar periwinkle uses a scaffold protein to build the drug. By introducing this protein into a lab setting, scientists increase production efficiency by nearly 1,000 times.