![\"The](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/Balunas0179.jpg\" "\\"Balunas")
<\/a>Balunas recently filed provisional patents for a novel compound called santacruzamate A, which she and her research team extracted from blue-green algae, also known as cyanobacteria. The algae thrive in the reefs of the Coiba National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site on Panama\u2019s Pacific coast.<\/p>\n
Santacruzamate A appears to have strong cancer-fighting properties and a structure similar to SAHA, a clinically-approved cancer medication commercially available under the trade name Vorinostat. However, initial tests show that santacruzamate A is 1,000-fold more active than SAHA in its ability to inhibit the histone deacetylase (HDAC) enzymes that are over expressed in cutaneous T-cell lymphoma and other cancers. Santacruzamate A also appears to be more selective in attacking only certain classes of HDAC enzymes, so that its application may be safer, with potentially fewer side effects.<\/p>\n
Balunas\u2019 research team initially tested the compound against tropical diseases and found it wasn\u2019t very active. It wasn\u2019t until Balunas attended a seminar where a presenter showed the structure of SAHA (suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid) that she recognized santacruzamate A\u2019s similarities and decided to test it in cancer assays. She was fortunate that UConn medicinal chemistry professor Amy Anderson happened to be working on HDAC-related research at the time and agreed to run santacruzamate A through her assays. The rest, as they say, is history.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a lot of excitement around this compound,\u201d says Balunas, who is discussing potential marketing options for the new compound and its derivatives with the University\u2019s Center for Science and Technology Commercialization.<\/p>\n
A personal dimension<\/strong><\/p>\n The santacruzamate discovery was a poignant one for Balunas, who lost her grandmother and mother to cancer.<\/p>\n Balunas\u2019 mother was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was working toward her master\u2019s degree in plant ecology at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Balunas, who had lost her father five years earlier, took time off to be her mother\u2019s caregiver and watched helplessly as the breast cancer metastasized to her mother\u2019s brain. After her mother\u2019s death, Balunas vowed to search for treatments that could help others who are diagnosed with cancer.<\/p>\n \u201cI moved from this abstract idea of plants as medicine to \u2018let\u2019s look at plants for fighting cancer, and let\u2019s see if we can have an influence on cancer using plant-based medicine,\u2019\u201d she says.<\/p>\n From tropics <\/strong>to glaciers<\/strong><\/p>\n Balunas\u2019 interest in marine life began while she was working for the Scripps Institution of Oceanography as part of her post-doctoral training in marine natural products drug discovery. She spent three years living and working in Panama, searching for anti-cancer and anti-malarial compounds in the waters of the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea.<\/p>\n Balunas continues to conduct research with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the International Cooperative Biodiversity Group (ICBG), which has been searching the fertile grounds of Panamanian oceans and forests since the early 1990s. Several potentially novel lead compounds have been discovered, in addition to santacruzamate A.<\/p>\n \u201cOur work in Panama and exploration of potential drug leads from marine cyanobacteria and other microorganisms has been a tremendously productive effort, with quite a number of high impact discoveries and other contributions,\u201d says William H. Gerwick, principal investigator for the ICBG research currently ongoing in Panama and Balunas\u2019 mentor for her postdoctoral research.<\/p>\n \u201cMarcy’s work with the discovery of santacruzamate and subsequent development of the lead through her work at UConn has become a \u2018flagship\u2019 discovery for our team and to an extent, the entire ICBG program,\u201d says Gerwick, a distinguished professor of oceanography and pharmaceutical sciences at the University of California at San Diego. \u201cI think there is every reason to be optimistic that this will continue to be an important scientific lead, and perhaps, provide a new class of therapeutics for cancer and other proliferative diseases.\u201d<\/p>\n Balunas is currently working with collaborators around the world on potential natural product compounds to combat malaria, leishmaniasis, Chagas’ disease, and cancer. She also has active collaborations within the UConn community, including with associate professor of molecular and cell biology Adam Zweifach on potential compounds addressing inflammation and autoimmune diseases and with associate professor of nutritional sciences Jiyoung Lee on the search for modulators of obesity-related inflammation from edible blue-green algae.<\/p>\n While much of her time is currently devoted to the advancement and development of santacruzamate A, Balunas is also researching the potential medicinal properties of natural compounds lifted from the bacteria that are associated with tunicates \u2013 also known as sea squirts \u2013 which are arguably the closest invertebrate relatives to humans. She routinely collects tunicates in Long Island Sound with divers from UConn\u2019s marine sciences program at Avery Point. She also collects them in Panama and Alaska.<\/p>\n In addition, Balunas is exploring the therapeutic potential of cold-obligate bacteria called psychrophiles found on and near glaciers in Alaska.<\/p>\n \u201cThe glaciers are really new for us,\u201d she says. \u201cWe take ice, meltwater, soil, and moss from the glaciers and try to grow their bacteria in the lab to test them for the disease properties we\u2019re interested in. No one really does that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Marcy Balunas, an assistant professor in the School of Pharamcy, has extracted a novel cancer-fighting compound from blue-green algae.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":70156,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2230,2231],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[44],"class_list":["post-70128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cancer","category-health-well-being"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-06 09:43:51","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70128"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104726,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70128\/revisions\/104726"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/70156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70128"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=70128"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=70128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/a>