Ohio State and Biosortia Pharmaceuticals to Join Forces to Discover Anti-Cancer Compounds

Columbus, OH, February 28, 2013 --(PR.com)-- Researchers with Ohio State’s College of Pharmacy under the direction of principal investigator, Douglas Kinghorn, Ph.D., D.Sc. will utilize pre-fractionated mixtures of microorganism consortia developed and provided by Biosortia as the source of novel compounds. The research interests of Dr. Kinghorn are on the isolation, characterization, and biological evaluation of natural products. Dr. Kinghorn’s work has focused on natural product compounds with potential anti-microbial, cancer chemotherapeutic, cancer chemopreventive, sweet-tasting, and bitterness-blocking effects. The initial agreement was finalized by a collaboration between Ohio State’s Technology Commercialization and Knowledge Transfer Office (TCO) and Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP).

Compounds from nature (Natural products) have played an integral beneficial role in cancer chemotherapy for over 50 years, both in terms of providing established drugs and new lead compounds for synthetic optimization. Compounds derived from terrestrial microbes and higher plants are now used as standard agents in cancer chemotherapy and over 50% of cancer drugs came from natural products (Newman and Cragg, et al). In addition, a number of new natural product-derived agents from organisms of terrestrial and marine origin have been approved recently to treat various forms of cancer.

Dr. Guy Carter, Chief Science Officer of Biosortia Pharmaceuticals will be working closely with the team. Dr. Carter has the utmost respect and confidence in Dr. Kinghorn and his team. “Dr. Kinghorn is a world leader in research of natural products for drug discovery. The cooperation between the organizations creates a productive first step in building a long term relationship,” says Dr. Carter.