AIDS drug may soon be derived from sunflowers
Date: 7.2.2006
In his doctoral thesis at the Bonn Centre of Molecular Biotechnology (CEMBIO) Claudio Cerboncini studied the sunflower's response to "white stem rot"—an infection caused by the fungus Sclerotina sclerotiorum. During his work, he isolated compounds the flowers produce to fight off the invasive mould.
One of them, dicaffeoyl quinic acid (DCQA), is a substance that AIDS researchers have identified as showing great promise as a new treatment for the disease. The catch is that it's very expensive to manufacture DCQA. Ralf Theisen, a plant biotechnology researcher at CEMBIO, has patented a method to produce DCQA more efficiently, using sunflowers and bacteria.
"Source":[ http://www.checkbiotech.org/root/index.cfm?fuseaction=subtopics&topic_id=1&subtopic_id=1&doc_id=12120&start=1&control=1342&page_start=1&page_nr=151&pg=1]
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