A marine sponge may provide a new treatment for some forms of leukaemia and other cancers.

Promising results have come from early studies by Dr Dan Balan, from the School of Applied Sciences at RMIT.

Research has suggested a synthetic form of a toxin which destroys cells for sponges could do the same thing for the human body.

The studies are focussed on a compound called ‘15-aza-Salicylihalamide A’, which is found in a very particular part of Western Australia.

“Salicylihalamide A is an interesting natural marine product that has been isolated from a marine sponge of the genus Haliclona, collected from waters around Rottnest Island, 18 km off the coast of southern Western Australia,” Dr Balan says.

“My goal was to synthesise the chemical in the laboratory in the form of a single aza-salicylihalamide A analogue molecule.

When the analogue compound was exposed to NCI-60 leukaemia cell lines, it exhibited anti-proliferating effects on the group of cells at highly diluted, or 'sub-molar', concentrations.

“15-aza-Salicylihalamide A Analogue has proven to be very active against various types of cancer, but it was clearly most active against HL-60, which is acute promyelocytic leukaemia,” Dr Balan says.

Further findings revealed it also inhibits vacuolar ATPase and proton pumps, which are found in metastatic cancer cells.

The encouraging findings have prompted wider-scale research, with hopes the sponge serum could one day form a big part of many cancer treatments.

“The molecule was synthesised in a short molecular sequence that could be easily produced in very large volumes for drug production,” Dr Balan says.