How ‘Pharaoh's curse' may help fight CANCER after leukaemia-battling chemical found in fungus linked to King Tut deaths
A TOXIC fungus linked to the deaths of researchers who opened King Tutankhamun's tomb may help fight cancer.
The poisonous fungus found growing inside the ancient tombs is believed to have struck down a team of 10 archaeologists in a theory known as " Pharaoh's Curse".
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The fungus crop - known as Aspergillus flavus - is believed to have been ingested by the researchers who then developed lung infections and died.
But now, in a miraculous turn of events, scientists think the toxic fungus could contain elements needed to attack blood cancer.
The fungus contains a "promising" protein that, when purified, could help battle leukaemia cells, they said.
According to their research, when combined with human cells, the protein is potent enough to disrupt the division of cancer cells.
Cancer is when abnormal cells divide in an uncontrolled way.
It starts when gene changes make one cell or a few cells begin to grow and multiply too much.
Sherry Gao, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, enthused that this could be the start of "many more medicines derived from natural products".
She told The Times: "Fungi gave us penicillin. These results show that many more medicines derived from natural products remain to be found".
She added: "Nature has given us this incredible pharmacy. It's up to us to uncover its secrets.
"As engineers, we're excited to keep exploring, learning from nature and using that knowledge to design better solutions.'
Tourists gather around Tutankhamun's 'cursed' body
This comes as researchers at Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic, both in the US, developed a new type of jab to fight pancreatic cancer.
The vaccine uses tiny particles called nanoparticles to train the body's immune system to find and kill 'bad' cancer cells.
In early tests with animals and lab models of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), the most common and aggressive type of pancreatic cancer, more than half of the treated patients were completely cancer-free months after getting the vaccine.
The vaccine also encourages the body to create its own T cells, immune fighters specially trained to attack cancer, while building up 'immune memory' for longer-term protection.
Meanwhile, researchers in South Korea said they were able to revert cancerous cells back to a healthier stage.
The team believe they can prevent the progression by exploiting the moment before normal cells irreversibly transform into diseased cells.
Current cancer treatments focus on removing or destroying cancer cells through surgery, radiation or chemotherapy.
But the groundbreaking discovery could let cancer patients regain their healthy cells.
The scientists published their findings in the journal Advanced Science.
Co-author of the new research Kwang-Hyun Cho is a professor of biology at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.
He said: "This study has revealed in detail, at the genetic network level, what changes occur within cells behind the process of cancer development, which has been considered a mystery until now.
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The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
A Revolutionary War-era boat is being painstakingly rebuilt after centuries buried beneath Manhattan
Workers digging at Manhattan's World Trade Center site 15 years ago made an improbable discovery: sodden timbers from a boat built during the Revolutionary War that had been buried more than two centuries earlier. Now, over 600 pieces from the 50-foot (15-meter) vessel are being painstakingly put back together at the New York State Museum. After years on the water and centuries underground, the boat is becoming a museum exhibit. Arrayed like giant puzzle pieces on the museum floor, research assistants and volunteers recently spent weeks cleaning the timbers with picks and brushes before reconstruction could even begin. Though researchers believe the ship was a gunboat built in 1775 to defend Philadelphia, they still don't know all the places it traveled to or why it ended up apparently neglected along the Manhattan shore before ending up in a landfill around the 1790s. 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The timbers were shipped more than 1,400 miles (2,253 kilometers) to Texas A&M's Center for Maritime Archaeology and Conservation. Each of the 600 pieces underwent a three-dimensional scan and spent years in preservative fluids before being placed in a giant freeze-dryer to remove moisture. Then they were wrapped in more than a mile of foam and shipped to the state museum in Albany. While the museum is 130 miles (209 kilometers) up the Hudson River from lower Manhattan, it boasts enough space to display the ship. The reconstruction work is being done in an exhibition space, so visitors can watch the weathered wooden skeleton slowly take the form of a partially reconstructed boat. Work is expected to finish around the end of the month, said Peter Fix, an associate research scientist at the Center for Maritime Archaeology and Conservation who is overseeing the rebuilding. On a recent day, Lucas took time out to talk to passing museum visitors about the vessel and how it was found. Explaining the work taking place behind him, he told one group: 'Who would have thought in a million years, 'someday, this is going to be in a museum?'' A nautical mystery remains Researchers knew they found a boat under the streets of Manhattan. But what kind? Analysis of the timbers showed they came from trees cut down in the Philadelphia area in the early 1770s, pointing to the ship being built in a yard near the city. It was probably built hastily. The wood is knotty, and timbers were fastened with iron spikes. That allowed for faster construction, though the metal corrodes over time in seawater. Researchers now hypothesize the boat was built in Philadelphia in the summer of 1775, months after the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts. Thirteen gunboats were built that summer to protect Philadelphia from potential hostile forces coming up the Delaware River. The gunboats featured cannons pointing from their bows and could carry 30 or more men. 'They were really pushing, pushing, pushing to get these boats out there to stop any British that might start coming up the Delaware," Fix said. Historical records indicate at least one of those 13 gunboats was later taken by the British. And there is some evidence that the boat now being restored was used by the British, including a pewter button with '52' inscribed on it. That likely came from the uniform of soldier with the British Army's 52nd Regiment of Foot, which was active in the war. It's also possible that the vessel headed south to the Caribbean, where the British redirected thousands of troops during the war. Its timbers show signs of damage from mollusks known as shipworms, which are native to warmer waters. Still, it's unclear how the boat ended up in Manhattan and why it apparently spent years partially in the water along shore. By the 1790s, it was out of commission and then covered over as part of a project to expand Manhattan farther out into the Hudson River. By that time, the mast and other parts of the Revolutionary War ship had apparently been stripped. 'It's an important piece of history,' Lucas said. 'It's also a nice artifact that you can really build a lot of stories around.'
The Sun
an hour ago
- The Sun
England's largest medieval hospital is unearthed inside a SINKHOLE in huge breakthrough – and no one knew it was there
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BBC News
3 hours ago
- BBC News
Horsham woman campaigns for lobular breast cancer research
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