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NYBG Scientists Help Discover a Promising Anticancer Agent to Fight a Childhood Scourge

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New York Botanical Garden Blog

03/31/2016

A chemical agent found in a member of the snapdragon family (Scophulariaceae) has shown early promise as a potential treatment for a cancer whose victims are overwhelmingly infants and children. 

I recently co-authored a paper desribing the potency of a chemical extracted from Armenian figwort (Scophularia oreintalis) in killing malignant cells found in neuroblastoma, a cancer of the nervous system. Neuroblastoma is the most common non-brain solid tumor in children and the most common cancer in infancy (NIH NCI, 2016). Almost half of its victims are children under two years of age.

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