Can the miracle cure for cancer be found in the noni  plant? Researchers at the University of Hawaii Cancer Research Center have been awarded $340,000 by the National Institutes of Health to find out.

"Part of the study is to look at what chemicals... in noni get into the blood and may be responsible for anti-cancer activity," said  Center Director Dr. Brian Issell about the two-year study with 30 cancer patients who have undergone standard treatments.

Found throughout the Hawaiian Islands and other tropical areas, noni  (also known as Indian mulberry or morinda citrifolia) has been used for hundreds of years as a healing medicine by Native Hawaiians. Scientists have already discovered that the plant kills the bacterium that causes tuberculosis, which could lead to new drugs to fight the disease.

Japan investigators have also found that a noni root compound inhibited the chemical process (known as the ras function) that converts some normal cells into cancerous cells and caused the bad cells to return to their normal shape and structure.

"Hope," explained British motivational writer Samuel Smiles, "is the companion of power, and the mother of success; for who hopes strongly, has within him the gift of miracles."

Miracles do happen.