A "super molecule" anti-cancer developed thanks to a marine sponge

Here is a medical discovery that will probably still be heard. For the first time, researchers from three laboratories in Toulouse have just developed a "super-molecule" capable of destroying cancer cells thanks to … a marine sponge.

A "pomegranate" molecule that destroys cancer cells from the inside

Researchers at the laboratory Synthesis and physico-chemistry of molecules of biological interest (SPCMIB) decided to exploit the "super-powers" of a sponge present in the Caribbean seabed. This is indeed composed of a natural molecule whose anticancer properties have been studied.

Once the molecule was recreated in the laboratory, the SCPMIB teamed up with the Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry (LCC) and the Institute of Pharmacology and Structural Biology (IPBS), also based in Toulouse, to "boost" its anticancer properties. . "It's as if we were taking a rough stone, that we have chiseled and shaped it to keep only its interesting properties and overcome its flaws", explains to 20 minutes Yves Genisson, research director at SPCMIB.

The three laboratories then worked together and managed to make the synthetic molecule "700 to 1,000 times" more powerful than its original natural to destroy cancer cells.

Its particularity lies in its ability to infiltrate cancer cells and destroy them from within, "like a pomegranate", says 20 minutes.

A possible treatment within a few years

Published last March in the scientific journal ChemMedChemthe results of this new work are extremely promising. However, say the researchers, not everything is played: they must now understand how this synthetic molecule manages to infiltrate malignant cells to kill them, but also understand how it succeeds in identifying them as targets. "We want to know how to use it in this or that cancer," says Etienne Joly, researcher at IPBS (CNRS / UPS).

In case of conclusive results, a new cancer treatment using this "super molecule" will be able to see the light of day in a few years.