Green Medicine: Biotechnology in the Rainforest

The discovery of new anticancer drugs from plant sources requires that a large number of plant extracts be tested in biological assays for anticancer activity in order to find the very small number of plants which do contain the appropriate properties. The work at Virginia Tech uses different biological assays than were previously used, so it is very possible that new compounds can be discovered from plants that were tested previously and not found to be active.

Students are directly involved in research that has the potential of uncovering anticancer medicine and are working with a renowned researcher who hasserved as the chair of the International Research Congress of Natural Products.