COP graduate student joins president as co-authors in new study

It's not often that a College of Pharmacy graduate student is co-authors with the MUSC president. It's also not often -- read never before -- that Boswellia has led to a purifed active drug product. 

But this may be changing! With this month's publication of Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, pharmacy graduate student George Hanna, endowed professor Mark Hamann, MUSC President David Cole, and COM endowed professor Nancy Klauber-DeMore appeared together as coauthors on a Hollings Cancer Center study led by first author Ingrid V Bonilla Valente.

Boswellia is best known as the source of frankincense. The study found anti-cancer activity in breast cancer patients provided with an extract of the Boswellia tree before surgery. 

Hamann's lab is now working on purifying some molecules that could lead to potential drugs; they now have two molecules of interest for future studies.

Read Hollings Cancer story

Study in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment