"Chinese medicine plant may lead to anticancer drug"

 "Traditional Chinese medicinal plants are used for a lot of maladies, but researchers at Johns Hopkins say one could serve as a starting point for development of new anticancer drugs.
The researchers found that a natural product isolated from a plant known as thunder god vine, or lei gong teng, and used to treat maladies including rheumatoid arthritis, works by blocking gene control machinery in the cell.
Their report was published in the March issue of Nature Chemical Biology.
“Extracts of this medicinal plant have been used to treat a whole host of conditions and have been highly lauded for anti-inflammatory, immunosuppressive, contraceptive and antitumor activities,” says Jun O. Liu, a professor of pharmacology and molecular sciences at Johns Hopkins. “We've known about the active compound, triptolide, and that it stops cell growth, since 1972, but only now have we figured out what it does.”
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Posted by Sharon Wyse L.Ac.