By Asmahanim Amir
Pictures by Ikhwan Hashim

KUALA LUMPUR, 23 May 2018 – Research on tiger milk mushroom nanoparticles to treat breast cancer conducted by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Haliza Katas with Lignas Bio Synergy has successfully won the Special Award at Tech Plan Demo Day in Malaysia recently.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Haliza who is a lecturer at UKM’s Faculty of Pharmacy said gold nanoparticles produced with her team using mushroom extract has the potential to be used as an agent for the treatment of breast cancer.

“Nanotechnology will enable breast cancer treatment to be given through local transdermal therapy which will deem drug exposure to the whole body as unnecessary.

However, the current chemotherapy treatment can only be done orally or by injection.

These methods, she explained, can have severe side effects and make patients feel uncomfortable which may cause some of them (patients) reluctant to receive treatment.

“Thus, we developed the idea of local transdermal therapy which delivers nanoparticles to breast cancer cells,” she said.

The research group focuses on utilising tiger milk mushroom as existing research shows that it has the capability to kill cancer cells, including breast cancer cells.

She added that the treatment was purposely designed as nanoparticles so that the treatment process can be made through the skin.

“We hope this research can reduce the side effect compared to the treatment of breast cancer performed now,” she said.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Haliza said she will carry out further research on the potential of tiger milk mushroom in treating various diseases, by utilising nanotechnology.

“The grant that I previously received was for treating diabetic wounds. Now we plan to see the potentials of nanoparticles in breast cancer treatment,” she explained.

With that victory, a Japanese company, JT Company has shown interest in the idea of using the mushrooms and has brought a sample of the study to be tested.

“If successful, I hope there will be better cooperation in expanding this research,” she said.