A group of scientists from the Department of Organic Chemistry and the Biotechnology Institute of the University of Granada have found out that the plant “Dittirichia viscose”, known as elecampe, can be used to obtain inhibitors of neurogenic vasodilatation, a significant progress in migraine and cancer treatments.
The study, supervised by professors María del Mar Herrador and Alejandro Fernández Barrero, has been carried out by Julieta Verónica Catalán, assistant professor of the National University of Tucuman (Argentina) and researcher of the University of Granada, and it has been financed by the Unión Europea through the Programa Alban and the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología. Julieta Verónica used the elecampe plant, abundant in the Mediterranean area, to obtain a method for taking out and purifying a natural product known as ilicic acid.
A promising angiogenesis inhibitor
This acid has been used to develop an effective method of chemical synthesis and of industrial interest towards the pharmacologically active &-eudesmol (against migraine) and ß-eudesmol which inhibits “in vivo” selectively, the proliferation of endothelial cells, being a promising antiangiogenic.