A Deadly Tomb Fungus May Have Yielded a Killer Leukemia Treatment

A Deadly Tomb Fungus May Have Yielded a Killer Leukemia Treatment

A Deadly Tomb Fungus May Have Yielded a Killer Leukemia Treatment A sample of Aspergillus flavus cultured in the Gao Lab. Credit: Bella Ciervo, via Univ. of Penn State A deadly fungus has been turned into a potent cancer-fighting compound after researchers isolated a new class of molecules from it. Aspergillus flavus , a toxic crop fungus linked to deaths in the excavations of ancient tombs—such as that of the boy pharaoh Tutankhamon—was recently used in a test against leukemia cells. The result? A promising cancer-killing compound that rivals FDA-approved drugs and opens up new frontiers in the discovery of more fungal medicines. “Fungi gave us penicillin,” says Sherry Gao, Presidential Compact Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and senior author of a new paper in Nature Chemical Biologyon. “These results show that many more medicines derived from natural products remain to be found.” After archaeologists opened King Tutankhamun’s tomb in the 1920s, a series of untimely d…