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Nanotechnology and Natural Products as Novel Anti-cancer Therapy

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INTRODUCTION:
There are new approaches and agents against certain types of cancer that are urgently needed. Some of the new agents use highly advanced technology utilizing nanoencapsulation that will improve the therapeutic index of the natural drugs. Nanoparticles for cancer therapeutics are rapidly evolving and are being introduced in an attempt to overcome several limitations of conventional small-molecule chemotherapeutics. Though chemotherapy is successful to some extent in certain cancers, it has several limitations (14). I will be discussing three natural products (Currcumin, Thymoquinone and Genistein) from plants that have anti-cancer effects. These three natural products have been studied for its antitumor mechanism against …show more content…

This is due to the invasive ability of pancreatic cancer cells during the early stages of carcinogenesis. Therefore, a majority of patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer often results in death due to metastatic disease, even after treatment, making it very complex and difficult to treat (2).
NATURAL PRODUCTS:
Small organic molecules derived naturally from microbes and plants have provided for over 40 years a number of useful cancer chemotherapeutic drugs. (20) A variety of natural products have been discovered over the last decade to inhibit human cancer cell proliferation. These compounds represent a whole new range of structurally diverse structures for anticancer drug discovery. I will focus on three natural products derived from plants that have anti-cancer effects. The natural products are as follows: Currcumin, thymoquinone and genistein.
UTILIZING NATURAL PRODUCTS:
The hunt for naturally occurring lead compounds has continued in recent years, and are being investigated for their anti-cancer activities. Selected new compounds or their derivatives that are described have been obtained for the first time recently from organisms of diverse biological origin, with potential use as cancer chemotherapeutic agents. As a result, the supply of a given natural product sample may be improved, and it may be possible to determine a beginning notion of structure-activity relationships and of its

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