The'death carrot' looms for cancer

摘要

The "death carrot" might appear to be a simple Mediterranean weed, but it has inspired what could be a potent cancer drug. Thapsia garganica is highly toxic to sheep, hence its name, and now it seems cancer cells dislike it too. Samuel Denmeade at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and colleagues have spent 15 years engineering an analogue of thapsigargin, the plant's active ingredient, which works by shutting down essential calcium pumps inside cells.