According to the National Cancer Institute, cancer is among the leading cause of death worldwide with 14 million new cases being reported in 2012 and 8.2 million cancer-related deaths. It is expected that by 2020 this number will rise to 22 million new cases each year with a 1 in 3 chance of developing cancer in a life time. However, with the advent of cancer research and extensive international attention, the average survival rate for all cancers combined has increased from 50% in the 1970’s to 68% today.

Natural products offer an abundant resource of biologically active compounds that offer potential cancer therapies, for example Paclitaxel (taxol ®) was isolated from the bark of the pacific yew tree. Using natural products directly from nature is not always an option as nature may only make these compounds in very small amounts, therefore, synthesis is usually required to manufacture sufficient quantities of material.

My project, co-funded by Syngenta, is focussing on a particular compound that was originally isolated from an Asian tree. Recent published work demonstrated that this natural product shows promising anticancer activity. Furthermore, by modifying its structure, researchers were able to significantly increase its potency.

My research aims to produce the same anticancer structure by a different route (photochemistry) and a cheaper, more readily available starting material (carbohydrates). Furthermore, by using a photochemical reactor to synthesise the active structure, I was able to produce tens of grams of material in a single overnight run.

This process does not involve reagents or catalysts and the solvent can be recycled at the end of the reaction, making it a highly efficient and environmentally friendly process. Moving forward, my plan is to further optimise and scale up the chemistry, so that I am able to provide larger quantities of this product. This is a necessary step before a full biological profile and toxicity can be investigated.