San Diego Researchers Say Mud Could Treat Diseases Like Cancer

By Ed Joyce / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published June 18, 2007 at 5:55 AM PDT

This story was published more than 17 years ago.

People have used mud baths and facials for years. Now San Diego researchers say mud could treat diseases such as cancer. KPBS reporter Ed Joyce has details.

San Diego Researchers Say Mud Could Treat Diseases Like Cancer

Photo: Scripps Researchers Bradley Moore (L) and Daniel Udwary (Rt). Scripps Institution of Oceanography .

People have used mud baths and facials for years. Now San Diego researchers say mud could treat diseases such as cancer. KPBS reporter Ed Joyce has details.

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Scripps Institution of Oceanography researchers discovered something in mud from the Bahamas that has the potential to fight diseases.

Scripps scientist Daniel Udwary is part of the team that figured out how a bacteria that lives in the mud produces natural antibiotics and anticancer products.

Udwary : We're finding that the ocean is a new source of antibiotics because similar bacterium that we've always used to find antibiotics also live in the ocean. And there's a lot more ocean sediment out there then I guess land sediment.

More than half of the natural antibiotics used now come from land-based organisms. The mud under the sea could now be another source.

Scripps researchers first discovered the bacterium in 1991 off the Bahamas. But Udwary says genetic research unlocked the anti-cancer potential.

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Udwary : It wasn't until we had the opportunity to sequence the entire genome that we found that there was even more to this organism than we thought was going to be the case. So it's a far richer source of potential drugs than we were expecting.

The mud has shown promising signs for treating various cancers. A San Diego pharmaceutical company is now using a product from the mud to treat patients that have a form of bone marrow cancer. The testing shows promising signs that could lead to a new medicine in the battle against cancer.

Ed Joyce, KPBS News.

Ed Joyce

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Ed Joyce was the environment reporter and afternoon news anchor for KPBS-FM. Before joining KPBS, he worked as an editor/columnist with Copley News Service in San Diego. Ed has an extensive background in newspaper, radio, web and TV journalism. After graduating with a B.A. in Communications from the University of Washington in Seattle, Ed began a career in broadcast journalism. His work has included stints in public broadcasting, commercial broadcasting and education -- working as an affiliate professor of communication and reporter at the University of Idaho and Washington State University in Pullman, Wash. During the past 20 years he has worked in radio, TV and print as a news reporter, anchor, writer, editor and producer. Along the way he has won numerous awards for general news reporting, newswriting, feature and issue reporting and breaking news reporting from The Associated Press, The Society of Professional Journalists, San Diego Press Club and other organizations. During the mid-1990s, while working for Oregon Public Broadcasting, he was a frequent contributor to National Public Radio, including a feature report on the memorial service for 14 U.S. Forest Service "hotshots" who died fighting a wildfire in Colorado (the crew was based in a central Oregon town). He’s also filed reports with Marketplace, KQED’s California Report and Climate Watch and with national and regional networks throughout the United States. At KPBS, Ed continues his contributions to National Public Radio and other national and regional news organizations. He has won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and San Diego Press Club for his environmental reporting at KPBS-FM-TV and for producing and anchoring radio newscasts. In 2007 he was selected a National Press Foundation fellow for Understanding Violent Weather II program. The seminars were held at the National Weather Center in Norman, Okla. In 2008 he spoke at a UC San Diego conference on U.S. National Security as part of the school’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. Ed led a discussion with the 18 foreign government officials and academics about the political debate over climate change. In 2010, Ed was elected to a three-year term on the board of the San Diego Press Club.

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