Materia Medica Malaysiana

Plant extract may have properties to treat cancer

KUALA LUMPUR: A local pharmaceutical company will carry out tests on mice for a plant extract that can possibly treat cancer.

This follows results of a preliminary cancer research by Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) on the extract, which has shown to kill cancer cells and slow down cell replication.

Autoimmune Sdn Bhd signed a research and consultancy agreement with the university in July to evaluate the company’s 35 herbal extracts for anti-cancer activities.

Lecturer Dr Johnson Stanslas of the Biomedical Sciences department of UPM's Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, said the preliminary research began with the testing of nine extracts.


Dr Stanslasa, who led the research under UPM’s Cancer Research and Drug Discovery Group, said the extracts were tested for their anti-cancer activities against three different cancer cells in an artificial environment (in vitro).

“We chose to test them against the breast, prostate and lung cancer cells as these cancers are the number one killers for men and women in Malaysia.”

He said ASB001 was also tested on mice, and the results showed no toxicity as there was no reduction in the body weight of the mice.

“This is a positive sign as anti-cancer agents with minimal toxic effects will benefit cancer patients,” he said.

Autoimmune managing director Patriek Yeoh said if the results from the animal trials are positive, the company may register the extract as a herbal supplement by next year.