A team of scientists at the University of the Philippines discovered that a certain organism (known as a sea cucumber) contains compounds in its body that have been shown to kill human liver cancer cells in the laboratory.
These chemical compounds may also trigger the growth of small protrusions of nerve cells, which help people recover from brain and spinal cord injuries.
Before these compounds can be turned into treatments for humans, scientists will need to extract them from sea cucumbers and test them in a series of conditions: cells in a dish, laboratory animals, and extracted human cancer tissue.
In the new study, researchers at the University of the Philippines, Diliman, ground samples from the walls and entrails of the sea cucumber's body (digestive system) for analysis.
Sea cucumbers have no limbs, heads or faces, and it can be difficult to distinguish between their mouths and anuses at a single glance.
The sea cucumber also expels its intestines at will as a defense mechanism against predators. Scientists have found that it can absorb water in the anus to float around the ocean.
They discovered a whole range of molecules that can be used in biomedical research. As well as a group of fat molecules called cerebrosides, found in the body wall and viscera.
The ones they identified could also be the building blocks for sphingolipids, another type of fat, the scientists wrote.
They added that sphingolipids from other sea cucumber species have been shown to have some anti-cancer benefits, as they can kill human liver cancer cells in a petri dish, and can contribute to the growth of new protrusions of nerve cells in laboratory tests.
More research is needed to find out whether these chemicals are able to kill cancer cells or encourage the growth of nerve cells in humans.
The results were published in the journal PLOS One.
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