[Impulse Lecture] – Method and result optimizations in the search for cancer chemopreventive natural products

The treatment of many diseases is highly dependent on natural products, and this is especially true for the treatment of cancer. Most human cancers seem to be potentially preventable because of controllable or removable causative exogenous factors (primary chemoprevention), but also by agents interfering with carcinogenesis. These compounds can be divided into three categories: blocking agents (anti-initiation), anti-promotion agents, and anti-progression agents. Successful hit discovery of cancer chemopreventive candidates relies on rationale strategies involving in vitro assays, compound isolation, and in vivo studies.

Several steps in natural products drug discovery are time consuming, require large amounts of plant material and do not lead to the expected results. Strategies to improve natural products research, such as high-throughput microfractionation coupled to bioassays targeting various stages of carcinogenesis will be shown. Also, various examples of experiments that did not give the expected results and for which careful data analyses and assessment are necessary, will be presented.