OK, when you first see this, you've got to be thinking mummies and deadly curses from the Age of the Pharaohs, right? Seriously, they even tell you that's what you should be thinking about.
Deadly Ancient Tomb Fungus Could Help Fight Cancer
Pharaoh's Curse fungus transformed to fight leukemia.
"Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have discovered a powerful anticancer compound hidden within Aspergillus flavus (A. flavus), a toxic fungus historically linked to the mysterious “Pharaoh’s curse” deaths of the first explorers to uncover the tombs of ancient kings, including King Tutankhamun and King Casimir IV of Poland."
(I should mention here that funding cuts to medical research would make breakthroughs like this less likely.)
"After purifying four different RiPPs, Nie and team discovered that the molecules shared a distinctive structure composed of interlocking rings. They named these newly identified compounds asperigimycins, after the fungus in which they were found.
Even without chemical modification, asperigimycins showed therapeutic potential when tested against human cancer cells, with two of the four variants exhibiting strong activity against leukemia cells. Another variant, enhanced with a lipid molecule also found in royal jelly (a substance that nourishes bee larvae), performed comparably to cytarabine and daunorubicin – two US Food and Drug Administration-approved leukemia drugs that have been in use for decades."
Reference: Nie Q, Zhao F, Yu X, et al. A class of benzofuranoindoline-bearing heptacyclic fungal RiPPs with anticancer activities. Nat Chem Biol. 2025:1-10. doi: 10.1038/s41589-025-01946-9.
Maybe we will get the last laugh over cancer, eh Vincent?
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