Lecturer Of The Sumateran Institute Of Technology Researches Anticancer Drugs Made From Periwinkle And Sumatera Pine

The Sumateran Institute of Technology (ITERA) Lecturer Team from the Center for Research and Innovation of Biological Materials and Natural Materials (Photo: Antara)

JAKARTA - The Sumatran Institute of Technology (Itera) Lecturer Team from the Research and Innovation Center (Purino) for Biological Materials and Natural Materials conducted research on several natural ingredients that can be used as anticancer drugs.

"This research is part of the innovation that the Itera campus is trying to develop," said Secretary of Purino Biological Materials and Natural Materials Itera Dr. Rahmat Kurniawan, S.Si., M.Sc., in South Lampung, Lampung Province, as reported by Antara, Tuesday, 8 June.

Rahmat, who is also a lecturer in the Itera Chemistry Study Program, said that various methods can be used to obtain organic compounds that can be used as medicines, especially cancer.

"Organic compounds can be obtained from a variety of natural materials, especially since Indonesia is a country that has the highest biodiversity in the world," he said.

He gave an example of organic compounds that can be found in Catharanthus roseus plants (periwinkle) which contain an alkaloid called vincristine which is currently commonly used for stage 3 and 4 cancer drugs.

In addition, he said, the research team of Purino Biological Materials and Itera Natural Materials is also researching the Taxus Sumatrana plant, known as "Sumatra Pine" which has organic compounds and can also be developed as an anti-cancer drug called paclitaxel.

He said that as an effort to enrich studies on the use of natural materials as cancer drugs, the Itera Research and Innovation Center Team for Biological and Natural Materials also conducted a webinar with the theme "Development of material and biological materials as anticancer drugs".

"In this webinar activity, the researcher presented the Research Center for Chemistry LIPI, Siti Nurul Aisyiyah Jenie," he said.