Botanical Drug Discovery - Exceptional Case Study

Rotem Perry Feigenbaum, Analytics, Cannasoul Analytics, Caesarea, Israel (rotem@cannasoul.co.il)
David Meiri, Biology, Technion, Haifa, Israel
Gil Lewitus, Cavnox, Caesarea, Israel

How can you find the active ingredients in different botanical drugs? How can you produce a pharmaceutical drug, starting with a plant that allows you to sleep better?

This talk will describe a drug discovery methodology from plant material to isolated active compounds.  Following screening of different chemovars, a specific cannabis chemovar was able to selectively induce apoptosis of leukaemia cell lines. This discovery was only possible due to advanced comprehensive analytical methods including: HPLC-UV, LCMS/MS, preparative HPLC and NMR.

The isolated compounds were tested in both in-vitro and in-vivo trials resulting in tumor-growth inhibition. Our findings present an important step in the establishment of a new therapy for treating a specific mutated disease.