A young Malaysian oncologist and her team in the United Kingdom are working to raise £50,000 (RM317,222) in a public crowd-funding campaign for research into an anti-malaria drug that is said to be effective in treating bowel cancer.

According to Cancer Research UK, bowel cancer is the second most cause of deaths from cancer in Europe.

The drug, called Artesunate, is commonly used to treat malaria. However, laboratory tests have indicated it can kill cancer cells and it costs much more cheaper if compared with the existing cancer drugs.

Dr Yolanda Augustin ( centre in photo, with her team ), a junior cancer research doctor working at St George's Hospital in Tooting, Southwest London, told Malaysiakini that her team has already raised £50,000.

It now needs an additional £50,000 to recruit more sites and patients to complete the study much more quickly and apply the latest techniques to detect recurrent tumours swiftly, through the use of ultra-sensitive molecular methods on blood samples.

Besides this, Yolanda, who hails from Kuala Lumpur, hopes the additional funding could be used to take their study to be applied in other countries for them to develop collaborative studies.

“We hope that the benefits from this Artesunate research can be used and may be understood in these less fortunate contexts,” Yolanda said.

Artesunate, a semi-synthetic and water-soluble artemisinin derivative, is used as an anti-malarial agent. It costs 70 pence (RM4.44) a unit.

It has attracted the attention of cancer researchers due to a broad range of anti-cancer activity, including anti-angiogenic, immunomodulatory and treatment-sensitisation effects.

She thanks all donors for their emotional support and the generosity of the people from diverse backgrounds and places.

“The donors have also been the best peer-reviewers, because they have scrutinised our idea, initiatives and found it worth to back the study.

“For this, we are grateful and for this reason, we are continuing the campaign to achieve the objective,” Yolanda said.

She added that the campaign was recently featured on BBC news and in several major British newspapers as well.

To pledge donations, members of the public can go here .