The search for treatments to beat such modern day diseases as cancer and diabetes is prompting scientists to examine traditional medicines used by Indigenous Australians. Native plants including Prickly Fanflower were used by Indigenous Australians and Charles Sturt University (CSU) researcher Dr Philip Kerr is investigating their potential as anti-cancer and anti-diabetic medicine. “Australian and other naturalised flora represent a vast, untapped reserve of potential eco-friendly medicinal agents,” he said. Other plants under investigation include Desert Poplar, Sticky Goodenia, Stiff-leaved Bottlebrush and the well known weed Bathurst Burr which may have the potential to combat cancer. Dr Kerr says his interest was triggered while studying in Western Australia where a controversial ‘cancer treatment’ derived from an Australian native plant was being dispensed to terminal cancer patients. "For many years, natural products from Australian flora had been studied but with no apparent connection to their medicinal potential, but with the renewed interest in medicinal plants worldwide, that interest has burgeoned," he said.