A group of researchers at Cairo's Qasr Al-Eini Medical School are reaping some impressive results, says Riham Adel When you feel indisposed, you naturally tend to gravitate to the medicine cabinet. But scientists in this country seem to be exploring the kitchen as well these days. According to recent medical research, some of the condiments on the kitchen shelves may have unusual healing powers. Take turmeric, for instance. This yellow powder comes either alone or in curry mixes and could be a miracle cure for numerous illnesses, researchers say. A member of the ginger family, turmeric grows in India, Indonesia and China, and was first brought to international attention by Marco Polo. It can be used to treat indigestion, gall bladder infections, rheumatism and dysentery, and it also offers some protection from cancer and lowers the level of cholesterol. Studies conducted by the National Research Centre in Cairo show that turmeric prevents blood clotting, improves digestion, enhances the metabolism, cleanses the liver and keeps the skin youthful. At the Qasr Al-Eini Medical School, a team of 22 medical researchers is busy at work on similar substances, and turmeric is just one of their ingredients. Heading the team is award-winning Dr Mohamed Talaat Abdel-Aziz, founder and head of the Unit of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (UBMB). Some 20 years ago, Abdel-Aziz wanted to free researchers from red tape and bureaucratic complications, so he lobbied for the creation of this unit and got start-up funding of LE5 million. An obsession with scientific research is what he sees as the common factor linking him and his team. Because scientific research is so costly, the UBMB survives on the money it makes from high-end diagnosis, normally not available in traditional labs. The UBMB also receives research commissions from universities and the Academy of Scientific Research (ASR). Its staff members are so dedicated to their work that they routinely donate the monetary value of their awards to finance their operations. "The bonuses that we receive from universities, which have doubled of late, and the returns from the research papers we publish in international science journals, all of this we funnel back into our research and into new studies," Abdel-Aziz explains. The unit is now busy looking for ways to cure male sexual impotence. For the past five years, its researchers have looked into the chemical aspect of this phenomenon, comparing the available medicines on the market, particularly Viagra. "Our team has published 12 scientific reports in this field in various scientific publications, including Andrologia and The Journal of Sexual Medicine," Abdel-Aziz said. The UBMB has received a certificate of appreciation and a grant of LE50,000 from the drugs company Pfizer to continue the research. A heme-oxygen enzyme, researchers discovered, plays a role in causing sexual response in lab animals. Corcumin, a substance found in the roots of turmeric plants, has been found to stimulate the production of this enzyme, but only when taken in large quantities. Corcumin cannot be absorbed by the body in sufficient quantities because it is not easily soluble in water, and the team is trying to find remedies for this. "We worked on changing the composition of corcumin, by adding other natural substances that would make it more easily soluble in water, thus allowing humans to absorb it and benefit from its therapeutic effects," Abdel-Aziz said. The team made a breakthrough in altering the composition of corcumin and obtained a patent for its discovery, registered at the ASR as PTC/EG/2008/000044. The new substance has been successfully tested on lab animals, and the team's findings have been published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, a respected US publication. The team also discovered that corcumin stimulates the pancreas to produce insulin, a significant discovery in the treatment of diabetes. Corcumin products that are soluble in water could thus be used by people suffering from impotence or diabetes. Last year, the ASR agreed to give LE1 million from the government Fund for Science and Scientific Development to the UBMB team. In the course of the three-year project, which started last November, the UBMB would use the funds to upgrade equipment, buy materials, and pay researchers. One thing the team is particularly excited about is the fact that the medicine they hope to produce as a result of the research would likely be more affordable than anything currently available on the market and would be made solely of naturally occurring materials. Because liver and heart disease is widespread in Egypt, the UBMB is also exploring stem-cell treatments for such aliments. Dr Dina Sabri, who is in charge of stem-cell research, told Al-Ahram Weekly that the UBMB had published research on the treatment of cirrhosis of the liver, a disease mostly caused by bilharzia and malnutrition in Egypt, in scientific journals in the US, Canada and the EU. "We have received approval from the scientific research ethics committee to start treatment with stem cells in a selected number of diseases, such as spinal injuries and lung fibrosis. The stem-cell treatment has been tested on humans, and we have treated about 15 cases already. The outcome of our studies will be published soon in scientific journals," Sabri said. While stem-cell research has given the UBMB a much- needed boost, more effort is still needed. According to Abdel-Aziz, there is a need to increase the number of tests on both animals and humans and to supervise cases for a longer period. "We treated a patient with stem cells in 2006 and we're following up his case regularly, and there have been no complications so far," he said. For researchers, stem-cell research is what candy is for a child, Sabri remarked. "It is one of the most successful fields in our unit, and it has brought us great joy. We have been able to extract beta cells from the pancreases of lab animals, used them as control groups, and compared them with those of diabetic animals. The stem cells implanted in the treated group were able to produce insulin," she said. The outcome of this experiment was published in the Medical Science Monitor. At present, the UBMB is getting ready to cooperate with Dr Mahmoud El-Zarqani of the Learning and Research Centre and Dr Nagui Habib, who lives and works in London, in order to create a special unit for stem-cell research. "It will be a big project with major impacts on treating many diseases. The budget we have set aside is LE5 million. I cannot tell you how happy I will be when this project is finally up and running. Stem-cell research is the safe alternative to organ transplants and is the future of medicine for years to come," notes Abdel-Aziz. During regular Tuesday meetings, the whole team meets to discuss work and assign tasks. A tradition Abdel-Aziz says he learned from his professors, this is a great way to stimulate group work, with the whole team exchanging views, critical as well as encouraging. Dr Layla Rashed, a member of the UBMB team, is a woman who likes to work in silence and dislikes having to talk in meetings. Nevertheless, Abdel-Aziz is generous with his encouragement in the meetings, she says, though also sometimes outspoken in his criticism. "He makes you work hard, and you end up craving his appreciation and dreading his criticism." Rashed is in charge of stem-cell research in cases of kidney failure, and she is currently exploring ways to treat patients without resorting to organ transplants. Kidney failure is not uncommon in Egypt, and it is a disease that can be very costly to the patient, as well as to the state. "We have succeeded in improving kidney function and treating kidney failure in laboratory animals, and we have submitted the outcome of our research to a British publication," she said. One medical problem that patients suffering from renal failure in Egypt are sometimes prone to is contracting hepatitis B, which happens because of the difficulty of detecting the hepatitis B virus. The UBMB is now trying to improve testing for this virus. "It is totally unacceptable to treat a kidney failure patient with hepatitis B and then infect another with the same virus," Sabri said. In October 2009, a British classification of international university rankings put Cairo University in 405th place, owing to its record of scientific research. "Cairo University is aware of the importance of scientific research and of the fact that the number of internationally- published papers is one of the main determinants of a university's international ranking. The Qasr El-Eini Medical School was one of the reasons Cairo University got into the top 500 universities ranking," Abdel-Aziz said. As a result of the emphasis placed on research, the university has also started to reward research teams that publish abroad. Researchers today can get bonuses ranging from between LE1,000 to LE50,000 for their papers, depending on how prestigious the journal publishing the research is. In recent days, UBMB members received LE24,000 in bonuses for publishing their work abroad. In addition, Abdel-Aziz himself received the university's greatest honour, the Excellent Professor Award, a prize that comes with a LE200,000 monetary award. Dr Gazem Ata, another prominent member of the UBMB, received LE50,000 in another award. The recently-created Fund for Science and Technological Development, an affiliate of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, has seen its funding grow to LE200 million this year. Two of the UBMB projects have received LE1 million each from the fund. UBMB researchers say that they have felt great improvements in their working conditions over the past three years or so. But they are still not happy with the often slow and complex process of importing test instruments and material from abroad. "It is ridiculous to spend a year or more trying to get machines or material from abroad," Rashed said. But money is not everything, Abdel-Aziz concluded. "Scientific research is not going to flourish in this country, or anywhere else, if we have enough funds but don't know the value of time," he said.
