University researchers from multiple disciplines are collaborating with researchers in Pakistan to explore the cancer-curing potential of plants native to the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent.

“We’ve been using an optical bio-sensor method to help us quickly look at what the interaction is between drug compounds that are derived from plants and their effect on human cancer cells,” said Brian Cunningham, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering. “In our first tests, we did find some plant extracts that effectively killed human breast cancer cells. Those are now candidates that we’ll study more and understand why they work and how they work.”

Cunningham, who develops the instruments necessary to inject the chemical compounds of plant extracts into a culture of cancer cells, is part of a larger effort known as the “Nanomedicine for Cancer” research project that is being funded by the Pakistan-U.S. Science and Technology Cooperative Program.

Professor Ken Watkin, director of the Medical Imaging Research Laboratory in the College of applied health sciences, is leading the research project and complementing Cunningham’s work by devising ways to deliver the plant extracts to cancerous cells in the human body.

“What my research has been involved in is developing nano-sized carriers that can take chemical agents into the body to treat tumors,” Watkin said.

The work of both Cunningham and Watkin, however, hinges on their ability to find an array of plant extracts.

“What we’re doing here with this particular project is training and conducting research with Pakistan on the potential (plant) extracts that they can provide,” Watkin said. “And being one of the leading plant extract countries in the world, we thought it would be an ideal mechanism for us to cooperate with them and help them build an infrastructure to translate their plant extracts into potential medical treatments.”

The lead researcher in Pakistan is Atiya Abbasi of the International Center for Chemical Sciences, H.E.J Research Institute of Chemistry and Dr. Panjwani Center for Molecular Medicine and Drug research at the University of Karachi.

Watkin and Cunningham, who both have vastly different educational backgrounds, were brought together by fellow research collaborator Irfan Ahmad, associate director for the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology.

“This is where the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology comes in, bringing a disparate group of people who did not have an opportunity or reason to work together, and historically had not, to sit at one table and address issues of the day,” said Ahmad.

The preliminary research has shown promise. Some chemical compounds that cause the cancer cells to die off by a process of apoptosis have been discovered, said Cunningham.

Apoptosis is the process by which cells naturally die in the body. With cancer cells, apoptosis turns off so the cells can keep growing.

The drug compounds discovered in the plant extracts were able to kick in the process of apoptosis in cancer cells.