Spring Break
URI undergraduate finds Jamun berry could treat breast cancer
Jeff Sullivan
Issue date: 12/4/08 Section: News
12/04/08 - A University of Rhode Island undergraduate student has possibly discovered a new, nontoxic and completely pain-free treatment for breast cancer.
Caroline Killian, 26, an undergraduate chemistry major, is working with URI professor Navindra Seeram in the Fellowship Research Program to discover cancer canceling effects of a purple berry called Jambolana, or the Jamun berry.
While the berries have been used in the past as a pre-insulin treatment for diabetes, they were never considered for cancer treatment before the pair's research.
Seeram, is involved with much of the natural products chemistry research at URI, but this discovery is the most significant, Killian said.
Jamun berries are unique in that they combat most types of breast cancer, including what is called a triple negative. It is called this because the diagnosis and some treatment options of breast cancer require the presence or absence of three key indicators, or receptors. The combination of these receptors usually tells doctors what type of breast cancer they're dealing with.
But in the case of the triple negative, none of these indicators are identifiable, making diagnosis and treatment very difficult.
"We know that there are these three lock and key spots on these types of breast cancer," she said. "We can target the lock and key indicators, but for triple negatives ... we have no way of attacking this cancer."
Chemotherapy treatments have been known to reduce and inhibit the growth of the triple negative breast cancer type, but the cancer has a higher chance of recurrence than other, more common forms of breast cancer.
Killian also said the only available treatment for this type of breast cancer is a mastectomy or chemo, but she and Seeram hope to change that.
"[Chemo] is just an indiscriminant spraying of chemicals," she said.
The Jamun berry will hopefully put an end to chemo treatments, for breast cancer patients at least, and Killian said since it successfully reacted with both the triple negative and other more common breast cancer forms in laboratory research, it is very possible the berries can provide a safer and viable treatment alternative.
Caroline Killian, 26, an undergraduate chemistry major, is working with URI professor Navindra Seeram in the Fellowship Research Program to discover cancer canceling effects of a purple berry called Jambolana, or the Jamun berry.
While the berries have been used in the past as a pre-insulin treatment for diabetes, they were never considered for cancer treatment before the pair's research.
Seeram, is involved with much of the natural products chemistry research at URI, but this discovery is the most significant, Killian said.
Jamun berries are unique in that they combat most types of breast cancer, including what is called a triple negative. It is called this because the diagnosis and some treatment options of breast cancer require the presence or absence of three key indicators, or receptors. The combination of these receptors usually tells doctors what type of breast cancer they're dealing with.
But in the case of the triple negative, none of these indicators are identifiable, making diagnosis and treatment very difficult.
"We know that there are these three lock and key spots on these types of breast cancer," she said. "We can target the lock and key indicators, but for triple negatives ... we have no way of attacking this cancer."
Chemotherapy treatments have been known to reduce and inhibit the growth of the triple negative breast cancer type, but the cancer has a higher chance of recurrence than other, more common forms of breast cancer.
Killian also said the only available treatment for this type of breast cancer is a mastectomy or chemo, but she and Seeram hope to change that.
"[Chemo] is just an indiscriminant spraying of chemicals," she said.
The Jamun berry will hopefully put an end to chemo treatments, for breast cancer patients at least, and Killian said since it successfully reacted with both the triple negative and other more common breast cancer forms in laboratory research, it is very possible the berries can provide a safer and viable treatment alternative.
