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COLUMBUS, Ohio – They’re plump and juicy on the vine, great with cereal and make some of the yummiest cobblers in the kitchen. Black raspberries may be one of America’s favorite fruits, but for patients with troublesome, precancerous changes in their mouths, they may also be an effective form of therapy.

Interestingly, this latest berry-based cancer prevention agent looks a whole lot like the toothpaste on your bathroom shelf!

“As far as we know, there is no one anywhere else in the world using a bioadhesive gel like we are,” says Dr. Susan Mallery, an oral pathologist in The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center and a professor in the OSU College of Dentistry.

Ohio State cancer researchers have been studying the anticancer properties of black raspberries for years under the leadership of Dr. Gary Stoner, co-leader of the OSU Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Molecular Carcinogenesis and Chemoprevention Program. They’ve found that freeze-dried berries can inhibit the growth of several forms of cancer in rats and hamsters, and have now begun testing the berries in humans.

Through partnership with a Columbus-based compounding pharmacy and the College of Pharmacy at the University of Kentucky, they’re simultaneously exploring novel ways to deliver the berries’ therapeutic potential.

Studies already under way are examining the effect of black raspberries in liquid form to treat patients with colon and esophageal cancers. Scientists in another trial are evaluating the berries in a chewy, lozenge form in patients with oral cancers.

The lozenges are made by the Central Ohio Compounding Pharmacy, a company dedicated to reformulating medications to make them easier for patients to use.

Russell Mumper, Ph.D., associate professor of pharmaceutical science and associate director of the Center for Pharmaceutical Science & Technology at the University of Kentucky, will oversee production of the gel, the latest “look” for berry therapy.

“We’re excited about the gel because it may be a low-cost, easily applied option that could help prevent cancer,” says Mumper. “When it comes to cancer, prevention is always the best strategy.”

Mallery says new treatment options are critical because oral cancers can be difficult to treat successfully. Surgery often requires removal of large areas of the patients’ jaws and faces, and many tumors recur despite extensive procedures.

She says while surgery is normally used to remove early, precancerous lesions, they tend to recur in about half of all cases and have the potential to develop into invasive, life-threatening cancers.

Mallery, working with Stoner and Dr. Peter Larsen, a professor in OSU’s department of oral and maxillofacial surgery, will be enrolling 20 patients with precancerous oral lesions in the initial gel trial.

During the patients’ initial appointment, half of the clinically suspicious tissue will be removed and examined microscopically. These pretreatment specimens will offer baseline measures of important biological activity. Participants will then be asked to apply the bioadhesive berry gel four times a day for six weeks. After that, the remaining portion of the lesion will be removed and additional studies conducted to see if the berries have altered the tissue’s biological profile.

“This is a proof-of-principle trial,” says Mallery. “We’re hypothesizing that the berries will promote normal cell death and at the same time enhance normal cell differentiation. In a sense, we’re trying to re-educate the cancer cells.”

Mallery says the study should be completed in about 18 months.

The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center is a network of interdisciplinary research programs with over 200 investigators in 13 colleges across the OSU campus, the Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute and Children’s Hospital, in Columbus. OSUCCC members conduct research on the prevention, detection, diagnosis and treatment of cancer, generating over $95 million annually in external funding.

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