Cancer Fighting Everglades Discovery Seeks Federal Approval

An organic-based compound synthesized from plants found in the Everglades and designed to enhance the performance of cancer fighting drugs has cleared a major hurdle on the road to receiving federal approval. 

Dubbed CRST-1, the mixture utilizes berries found in the nearby Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve by researchers from GRDG Science, a Winter Haven based, private research and development organization. Harvard University’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has studied CRST-1 and will soon publish the results, which show the compound is indeed effective in fighting cancer. 

“We took the top four cancer drugs and tested them against all the available forms of cancer and the compound increased the efficacy of the drugs by multi-folds,” said Daryl Thompson, GRDG’s founder and director of scientific initiatives. “It didn’t just increase by 20 or 30 percent. It was highly successful. We identified a backdoor for fighting cancer and the theory held up.”

The Harvard study involved collaboration with GRDG’s own researchers, who were led by the company’s chief scientific advisor, Dr. Roscoe M. Moore, Jr., a former U.S. Assistant Surgeon General and Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer at U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

“By GRDG exploiting a novel mechanism, this technology appears to be a very genuine breakthrough for cancer that will allow us to hopefully develop advancements to improve lives globally,” said Dr. Moore. 

CRST-1 is a key ingredient in a new medical food, which are substances that accompany traditional medicines to improve their effectiveness and shorten treatment times. It works by inhibiting the growth of PIM, the mechanism that stimulates a cancer cell’s ability to fight against drugs designed to kill it. The compound represents a different approach to fighting cancer because unlike many commonly used cancer treatments, it doesn’t rely on its strength to be effective.

“The reason why the drugs work better is not because we made the drugs stronger,” explained Thompson, who noted some of today’s cancer treatments can also cause significant collateral damage to the body. “We actually took the fight out of cancer. It’s like if you were to tranquilize a bully. If you tranquilize the bully, you can go in and win because you made him weaker, and that’s what we did with cancer. It’s a new approach that’s showing to be very promising.”

Clinical trials are the next step in the process before the compound is submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its review and approval. Thompson said that with testing to be done and the FDA approval process to be completed, it isn’t possible, at this time, to project when the compound will be available for cancer patients. 

"We are pushing forward into studies immediately to progress CRST-1 to reach the market as quickly as possible,” he added. 

Thompson has frequented Marco Island for years as a vacation spot and while conducting research in Fakahatchee Strand and other nearby Everglades locales. In 2020, he was leading a GRDG research team in the strand, working on a cancer-related project, when a chance encounter launched him down the path that led to the discovery of CRST-1. 

On that trip, he was relaxing in the Sand Bar when he met Marco resident Christie Bastian through a mutual friend, Doris Sweetin. 

As they chatted, Thompson learned of Bastian’s more than a decade long ordeal with, first, breast cancer, and after winning that battle, the onset of a rare and aggressive form of cancer, anal adenocarcinoma with pagetoid spread. She’s maintained a gritty, “glass half full” attitude throughout the treatments, surgical procedures, recoveries and check-ups, and everything else that’s been involved in her journey with the disease. 

As Bastian has said, “You have to get through it to get through it. Never give up. Just never give up.”

That resolve struck a chord with Thompson and inspired his approach to neutralizing PIM. Next came the research that led to the identification of the PIM-inhibiting molecule he named CRST-1 in Bastian’s honor.

“Christie was telling me her story of cancer, how difficult it was, how much it had damaged her, how much it’s taking one piece at a time from her,” said Thompson. “I noticed immediately that she has this powerful, positive outlook on life, despite all this. She said, ‘You fight. You’ve got to fight; you’ve got to fight harder than the cancer.’ When she said that, it immediately struck me that the key to survival would be to fight harder and I thought, ‘What if, instead of going in there with the drugs that we use and immediately attacking it, we were able to take the fight out of cancer?’”

Bastian is honored to have played a role in CRST-1’s discovery. 

“I’m just one of millions of other people who are diagnosed with cancer, recovering from cancer, fighting cancer; I’m just one of many,” she said. “Every time I walk into the doors of Moffitt (Cancer Center in Tampa) and I look around at how many people are in there, I just think, ‘I’m just another face of this horrible disease.’ So, it’s really humbling to be associated with something that could potentially be so significant and lifesaving, that reduces the collateral damage from treating cancer. I’m grateful that I could, in some small way, make a difference.”

CRST-1’s creation has resulted in an unexpected and potentially earthshaking discovery: the compound may help lead to the discovery of a means of preventing the horrific disease.

“This has given me the route to move forward with a vaccine for cancer,” explained Thompson. “Every step of this project has been successful to date and what I want to do is create a vaccine to inhibit PIM and hopefully suppress the cancer before it begins.”

While he’s excited by the possibilities the compound presents, he hasn’t lost the healthy skepticism researchers have about new scientific discoveries until they are proven. He’s also mindful of the import of such a potentially monumental discovery.

“I think you start feeling the weight and responsibility of ‘caretaking’ something like this and getting it where it needs to go to hopefully save lives and it’s very sobering,” said Thompson. “I feel fortunate to have met Christie and I feel fortunate to be on this path, but the feeling of responsibility and purpose can keep you awake at night sometimes.”