While great strides have been achieved in cancer treatment, scientists are looking for the next generation of therapeutics to stop the second-leading cause of death nationwide. A new approach to disrupt the “conversation” between cancer cells that promote tumor growth has been developed through a collaborative effort linking chemists at NYU and pharmacologists at USC.
In a study appearing the week of September 9 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the research groups of Bogdan Olenyuk of the USC School of Pharmacy and Paramjit Arora of the NYU College of Arts and Sciences explain their development of a synthetic molecule, the “protein domain mimetic” — representing an emerging frontier in cancer research that is distinct from the typical search for small molecules that target cancer cells.
Rather, this synthetic molecule targets the interaction between two proteins, at the point where intracellular signaling converges resulting in up-regulation of genes that promote tumor progression.
This compound was specifically designed to interrupt the type of molecular conversation within the cell — called cell signaling — that promotes growth of cancer cells and tumor progression. Read more here.
Study mentioned: Kushal S et al. Protein domain mimetics as in vivo modulators of hypoxia-inducible factor signaling. PNAS 2013 ; published ahead of print September 9, 2013, doi:10.1073/pnas.1312473110
No comments:
Post a Comment