Researchers have uncovered cancer fighting properties in a spicy Indian pepper plant called the long pepper. Suspected of having medicinal properties for thousands of years, researchers have now found that a chemical within the long pepper called piperlongumine (PL) can silence a gene that is often overly abundant in tumors. Now the next task for scientists is to improve the potency of PL to treat a wide range of different cancers, including lung, breast, and leukemia.