UNAIR NEWS – Dr. Mulyadi Tanjung, MS., has again found plants with great efficacy beneficial for the public. He discovered “Ki Sampang” as an anti-uterine cancer drug.
Ki Sampang, according to him, is a shrub plant that grows a lot in Indonesia and is rarely glimpsed by the community because it is a wild plant. Through UNAIR Faculty of Science and Technology natural resource research group, he was interested in conducting research on the content of compounds in this plant.
“Researcher’s interest in this plant is based on previous studies on similar plants that are still in the genus Melicope and apparently has anti-cancer activity,” he said.
Mulyadi also said that Ki Sampang plant (Melicope quercifolia ) was studied for its leaves. FST UNAIR’s research team managed to find two new compounds, Meliquecifolin A and B.
“The new compound was tested on three cancer cells, breast cancer cells, blood cancer cells and uterine cancer cells,” he explained.
He explained that the results from the tests on various cancer cells showed that the active compounds in Ki Sampang were found to have high activity against uterine cancer cells and were not active against other cancer cells. This discovery, he said, gave hope to women who are prone to cervical cancer.
“All this time, treatment of uterine cancer is done by using drugs from alkylating, antimetabolites, anticancer natural products, hormones, and other classes. Among these anticancer drugs, cancer drugs based on natural ingredients are preferred by sufferers because they are considered safer,” he said.
In the end, he also explained that the results of his research showed a promising prospect in the effort to find anti-cancer drugs based on safer natural material. Further research, continued Mulyadi, will focus on the exploration of Melicope Indonesia in various regions of Indonesia and their beneficial activities as medicine.
“So the types of Melicope can be mapped and used as a source of natural-based medicine,” he concluded.
Author: Nuri Hermawan
Editor: Khefti Al Mawalia
Reference:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14786419.2019.1644634
Saputri, R.D., Tjahjandarie, S.T., and Mulyadi Tanjung, 2019, Two novel coumarins bearing an acetophenone derivative from the leaves of Melicope Quercifolia, Natural Product Research.
