Jamba Juice's New Flavor: Starfish.

Imagine a world free from cancer cells like these:

Seems pretty incredible, right?
     Actually, recent studies have shown that the key to the cure that has elluded scientists for ages may lay on the depths of the ocean floor.
     Although creatures like starfish and sea urchins may seem quite helpless because of their inability to flee from a predator, they, and other creatures like them, contain toxins that they release as a defense mechanism. These toxins must be so highly concentrated because they are diluted in water as soon as they are released. This high concentration has allowed scientists to use the toxins for advanced cancer research. 

     To obtain these toxins, creatures like starfish and sea urchins are collected from about 20 different creatures around the world, frozen, brought to research labs, and then processed into a more usable extract. Processing these creatures begins with pulverizing these creatures in a meat grinder.
     This extract is then tested on nine different cancer-tumor types. the main types tested are: breast, prostate, colon, lung, and liver. The compounds that are effective go on to further, more advanced testing. 
     Although these tests have produced amazing results, getting approved by the FDA is a long, time-consuming process that could take up to ten years or longer.
  David Newman, a chemist of the National Cancer Institute's drug development program, says that Ziconotide will be the first to hit drug stores. Ziconotide is a recently developed painkiller that was approved by the FDA in December 2004. It is about 50 times more potent than morphine, but without the harmful risk of addiction. It is derived from the cone shell snail, an animal found in the South Pacific.

     The cone shell snail hunts small fish with an "extendable tooth," or venom-tipped harpoon. Its venom is a mix of roughly 20 toxins that anesthetize and paralyze its prey. Conotoxins like these act on a specific pain receptor in the brain, giving them a potential for low side-effects. However, the downside is that is must be injected.
    Another medicine made from an underwater creature's toxin is Bryostatin, which is derived from a marine byrozoan. Paired with an arsenic, this compound may be able to treat acute leukemia.

      Many other medicines have been discovered due to this amazing research. Some of them include: Soblidotin, a possible future treatment for lung cancer; and DMBX, a chemical modification of a worm toxin that may be used for Alzheimer's disease in the future.
     Newman says that it is no surprise that these things can be used for such similar purposes in the medical field when you look at them from a molecular perspective. They are very much alike. "Nature uses the same thing again and again. What works, works."

Naamati, G. (2010). A predictor for toxin-like proteins exposes cell modulator candidates within viral genomes. Retrieved September 13, 2010, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.erl.lib.byu.edu/pmc/articles/PMC2935411/

Newman, Cathy. (2005). Pick Your Poison. Retrieved September 13, 2010, from National Geographic Magazine Web site: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0505/feature1/online_extra.html

Zhang, Y. (2010). Sensitivity of Cancer Cells to Truncated Diphtheria Toxin. Retrieved September 13, 2010, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.erl.lib.byu.edu/pmc/articles/PMC2864767/