The risk of cancer is significantly increasing nowadays, which is
a serious social and health problem threatening human beings.
Hence numerous scientists continuously endeavor on this imperative
issue of conquering the malignant disease and declining the
incidence of cancer. Because over 60% of currently used anticancer
agents are derived from natural sources directly or indirectly,
the discovery and development of new effective and safe
cancer inhibitors from folk medicines still are important research
subjects. In recent decades a large quantity of natural products
isolated from Chinese natural medicines have been found to have
remarkable bioactivities in the inhibition of cancer cell proliferation,
induction of apoptotic death, lessening of metastasis, blockage
of angiogenesis in the tumor tissues, and enhancement of
present chemo- and radiotherapies. All these remarkable achievements
not only afford scientific reasons for utilizing Chinese
herbs to augment conventional therapies but also provide various
important information for new drug design and development and
new therapy strategies to improve the quality of cancer treatment
and prevention. The greatest successful example of the discovery
and development of novel drugs from Chinese natural medicines
is artemisinin, a powerful antimalaria drug from a Chinese herb,
Artemisia apiacea. The drug was complimented by the World
Health Organization for saving millions of patients who suffered
from the malarial disease, and the discoverer, Dr. Du Niuniu, was
awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine in 2015. This fact strongly
inspires scientists to dig into the treasure of Chinese natural medicines.
There is an enormous and untapped potential in natural
herbs that are beneficial to human health.
The overview of cancer inhibitors from Chinese natural
medicines could roughly be classified into five types: (1) inhibitors
with powerful cytotoxicity similar to those of current chemotherapeutic
agents but displaying toxicity and side effects;
(2) inhibitors that exert marked anticancer effects but are lower
than (1)-type inhibitors and have minor toxicity or nontoxicity;
(3) inhibitors with moderate effects on cancer cells and also have
immunoregulative and/or antioxidant properties; (4) inhibitors
that are weakly effective against cancer cells but are capable of
stimulating the functional immune system and antioxidative system;
and (5) inhibitors that normally do not directly affect cancer
cells but remarkably enhance the cytotoxicity of the functional
immune factors of the host to attack the cancer cells. Based
on research results, the multiple types of cancer inhibitors are
known to be often involved in single herbs that play diverse roles
in cancer therapies. For the improvement of life quality and life
duration, different inhibitor-containing herbs, in many cases, are
effectively combined in the prescriptions of Chinese medicine by
doctors in China to treat cancer patients.
This book primarily is focused on the interface of chemistry/
biology and molecular biology, and comprehensively summarizes
recent cutting-edge research advances in the field of cancer inhibitors
(including extracts and compounds) from Chinese natural
medicines. To underline how Chinese natural medicines research
continues to make predominant contributions in the domain of
the discovery and development of novel cancer inhibitors, this
book highlights the scientific evidences of 238 Chinese herbs in
eight major aspects: (1) advanced discoveries of cancer inhibitors
from Chinese natural medicines; (2) in vitro and in vivo inhibitory
effects against different types of cancer cells, such as their
antiproliferative, antigrowth, antimetastatic, antitumorigenic,
and antioxidant properties; (3) modern exploration of suppressive
mechanisms; (4) synergetic activities in the combination of
current cancer therapies with the inhibitors; (5) reversal advantage
of the inhibitors against drug resistance; (6) structural modification
to derive more important molecules for drug development;
(7) formulation researches on nanocapsules/ microparticles,
immunotoxin/antibody–drug conjugate, and metal complex; and
(8) clinical trials and practices of herb extracts and/or promising
inhibitors derived from Chinese Natural Medicines (CNM).
Consequently, this book brings readers comprehensive and
illuminating insights into cancer inhibitors from Chinese natural
medicines. The 238 Chinese herbs have been categorized
into 14 chapters in the book according to their main functions in
Chinese medicine. For most of the selected herbs, the research
data have been collected up to October 2015, from the latest challenges
in the anticancer approaches. A large number of abbreviations
are used in the book for the convenient description of the
mechanisms and others, thus an Index of Acronyms was provided
for the entire explanation. Also, numerous Asian journals
are cited in the Reference sections of this book. Many of the journal
names are quoted with a phonetic transcription of Chinese,
Japanese, or Korean. Readers can use Google to search their
corresponding English translation, and Google may sometimes
bring you to the website of the journal you are searching for.
Finally, I desire that this reference book should provide readers
not only abundant information on anticancer chemical biology
and molecular biology but also elicit great ideas for utilizing
the potential drug candidates and/or adjuvants to challenge the
cancer disease in both therapy/prevention and drug development.
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