An Indian On His Way to Produce Cheaper Cancer Drug

Oct. 3, 2010 - PRLog -- Ajikumar Parayil  , an Indian scientist from the  Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has helped Coax E. Coli Bacteria to produce Taxadiene which is a precursor compound for Paclitaxel . Paclitaxel is a kind of drug and it is mainly used for Breast , Lung and Ovarian Cancer treatment .Previously the medicine was produced from the bark of the pacific yew trees.  Ajikumar Parayil is a PhD from Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam.

The earlier method of production of  the drug was different . It needed two or three fully grown up trees to produce a single dose for a human being. But the recent method is unique .It is extracting the required material to produce the drug from plant cells. It is producing the drug in small quantities and at the same time it is too expensive . In US it costs to $ 10,000 per dose.

Parayil and his colleagues at MIT and Tufts University which is situated in Boston have analyzed the complex  sequence of steps in the synthesis of Paclitaxel and utilized the analyzed - knowledge to engineer genes of E. Coli to produce Taxadiene.

According to the Indian scientist, Parayil There are several more steps to obtain Paclitaxel from Taxadiene, but  the most challenging part is  the Taxadiene Synthesis. It is hoped that Paclitaxel can be produced a lot cheaper with the new process and no doubt the era will be eyewitness of the technological and medical progress.

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