(TDB) - Scientists say they have found a new way to harness natural chemicals in beer hops to potentially fight cancer and other diseases.

Cancer-fighting compounds found in beer hops are now being extracted and duplicated synthetically to increase their reliability, according to a team of researchers presenting a study in the US this week.

Leading scientists attending the National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society in San Diego heard that new techniques are being employed to create from scratch anti-cancer chemicals found in beer hops.

Kristopher Waynant, Ph.D., who leads the beer hop project, explained the difficulty in getting the health-giving chemicals from hops.

“When researchers extract healthful chemicals from hops, they first have to determine whether they have separated out the specific compounds they’re interested in,” he said.

“But if you can figure out how to make these compounds from scratch, you know they are the right ones.”

He now believes that he is getting close to finding the complete method for producing these compounds in the lab.

The chemicals Waynant is interested in are humulones, acids that have anticancer and anti-inflammatory properties, and lupulones, which have equally important but not as well-understood biological effects.