The Facts:
- Lunasin is the first nutritonal compound identified to affect gene expression and promote optimal health at the epigenetic level.
- LunaRich® from Reliv optimizes bioactive lunasin more than any other source available today.
- Reliv owns exlusive rights to LunaRich and the lunasin technology used to create it.
Dr. Galvez: My current research interest is to identify and monitor global and localized changes in epigenetic marks and chromatin modifications (i.e. H3-K14ac, H4-K16ac, PCAF occupancy, DNA methylation) associated with androgen treatment and prostate cancer formation by developing ChIP-based and microRNA genomic assays. A secondary goal is to further characterize the chemopreventive effects of the dietary soy peptide, lunasin, on prostate cancer based on its chromatin binding property and epigenetic mechanism of action. I serendipitously discovered the anti-mitotic effect of the lunasin gene and the cancer preventive and chromatin binding properties of the lunasin peptide while I was a postdoctoral scientist at UC Berkeley. My work outside of academia has led to the development of putative modified peptides as potential anti-cancer therapeutics, identification of the lunasin peptide as the active component in soy protein responsible for its LDL-cholesterol lowering property and the commercial development of lunasin-optimized soy protein extracts for the nutraceutical, cosmeceutical and functional food industry. I am currently extending my work at UC Davis to understand the chemopreventive mechanism of action of the lunasin peptide against prostate cancer and build on previous results from whole genome expression studies and novel discoveries. These include the characterization of the differential epigenetic effect of lunasin on normal and tumor prostate cells, the discovery that lunasin upregulates UGT1A1 in liver cells, and the discovery of lunasin as a dietary peptidomimetic, with structural and functional similarity to the human tumor suppressor, ANP32A, found mutated in prostate and breast cancers.