Australian rainforests may provide potential cancer cure

Dr Ananya Mandal, MD
Queensland scientists have discovered a drug to cure cancer that has effectively worked in animals and is to be tried on humans in the next phase of trials. This drug is plant-derived and is called EBC-46 for trial purposes. The plant from which it is obtained is found in the Australian tropical rainforest. The drug has shown to reduce inoperable tumors in 150 dogs, cats and horses and a ferret to a significant extent. The drug was developed over the past six years from the seed of a rainforest plant found in the Atherton Tablelands. Scientists had cultivated their own plantation of the plant since forming the company QBiotics Limited in 2004.
The research into the drug has received almost $565,000 from the State Government innovation funding and federal funding. QBiotics chief executive Dr Victoria Gordon is out looking for investors to sponsor fast-track human clinical trials of the drug. She said that the drug has the potential to be effective in treating skin, head, neck, breast and prostate cancer in humans. Dr Gordon said $10 million was needed to fund human trials, which would be run in Australia. She revealed that the drug is already raising hopes of many and many residents of the Gold Coast are purchasing shares of the company and have already helped raise $5 million in just two weeks. She also said that many of these investors have a “personal” reason to support this drug. Many of them are “mainly mums or dads, or angel investors”