Buckyball Cures

摘要

In 1985 chemists discovered a soccer-ball-shaped molecule made of 60 carbon atoms and called it buckminsterfullerene-buckyball for short. Researchers have imagined using the molecule for everything from rocket fuels to lubricants, but real-world applications have yet to materialize. That could soon change. Toronto-based C Sixty plans to start clinical testing of three fullerene-based drugs in the next year and a half. Coordinating the efforts of a dozen university researchers worldwide, C Sixty is developing drugs for the treatment of AIDS, Parkinson's disease, Lou Gehrig's disease, osteoporosis and cancer. "I think their chances are extremely good. The arguments for the success of these things are really quite stunning," says Rice University chemist and C Sixty scientific advisor Richard Smalley, who shared the 1996 Nobel Prize for his codiscovery of fullerenes.