Many volunteers world-wide commit themselves to raising funds for cancer research and cancer charities. Many tens of thousands more work within the industry as carers, or researching, prescribing, identifying and manufacturing drugs. Huge companies spend fortunes on cancer research. After so long and a lot of billions spent what exactly has cancer research revealed?

There have been regular breakthroughs in our comprehension of cancer, but little progress in its treatment. Modern research into cancer began in the 1940's and 50's when scientists isolated substances that killed cancer cells growing in a petri dish, or leukaemia cells in laboratory mice. Early successes in chemotherapy set the pace and received much media exposure, despite the fact that they only applied to 5% of cancer treatments at most.

Serving humanity by solving its major diseases has a celebrity status, there's a lot of kudos and an air of Hollywood linked to such things. Cancer research is high profile activity and every now and after that a scientific treatment is discovered that gains wide recognition, such as the HPV-16 trial, but it only applies itself to the treatment of a small number of cancers. Mass-media hype is involved in the problem of how we see cancer. Early discoveries setup an expectation that there was a cure-all treatment, a 'magic bullet' that might make its discoverer famous by curing cancer across the world. The idea stems in part from aspirin, the original bullet that magically finds its way to the anguish and diminishes it.

In the 1950's and 60's huge and expensive research projects were set up to test every known substance to find out if it effected cancer cells. You might remember the discovery of the Madagascar Periwinkle (Catharansus Roseus), which revealed alkaloids (vinblastine and vincristine) that can be still employed in chemotherapy today. Taxol, a therapy for ovarian and cancer of the breast originally came from the Pacific Yew tree. A treatment for testicular cancer and small-cell lung cancer called 'Etoposide' was derived from the May apple. In 'Plants Used Against Cancer' by Jonathan Hartwell over three thousand plants are identified from medical and folklore sources for the treatment of cancer, around half of which have been shown to have some impact on cancer cells in a test tube.

When these plants are made into synthetic drugs, single chemicals are isolated as well as the rest of the plant is usually thrown away. The medicinally active molecules are extracted from the plant and modified until they are chemically unique. Then the compound is patented, given a brand name and tested.

In the first phase it will generally be tested on animals, the other phase will decide dosage levels as well as in phase 3 it really is tested on people. Through the time it's approved through the Federal Drugs Authority (in U.S.A.) or perhaps the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulation Agency (M.H.R.A.) in Britain, the development costs for a brand new drug can reach five hundred million dollars, which eventually has to be recouped from the consumer.