You may not be aware that most of the medicines that have been approved for treatment are rooted in nature. For example, the bark of willow trees has been called nature’s aspirin because it contains a chemical called salicin. The human body converts salicin into salicylic acid, which relieves pain and fights fevers.

New research by William Chain, associate professor in the University of Delaware’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and his lab, uses a molecule found in a tropical fruit to offer hope in the fight against liver-related cancers, one of the world’s top causes of cancer deaths.

Using a process called natural product total synthesis, Chain and his lab group have invented a pathway that uses widely available chemicals to create molecules found in a guava plant that are known to fight these deadly cancers. The work is published in Angewandte Chemie.