Novel approaches to cancer drug discovery
A range of designer drugs that can specifically target protein-protein interactions causing cancer is the aim behind new research being carried out by Dr Andy Wilson, School of Chemistry and the Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology.
Dr Wilson is leading the €1 million, ERCfunded project that aims to broaden the scope of drug development. The objective is to mimic how common cancer proteins interact with each other using synthetic molecules, with the ultimate goal of creating
a wider range of more effective treatments.
This multidisciplinary project involves a team of investigators from the Astbury Centre, including Dr Thomas Edwards and Dr Stuart Warriner.
“The majority of current cancer drugs target enzymes because they have well-defined active sites for which scientists can quite easily design drugs,” explains Dr Wilson. “However, enzymes only make up a small fraction of cellular proteins. Most proteins interact with each other in a much more complex way that is still poorly understood, let alone amenable to drug discovery.”
Instead of the specific ‘lock and key’ interactions in enzymes, in protein-protein interactions the entire surface of the protein has to recognise its partner. If scientists can understand such interactions and develop means to block them, they will have the ability to design drugs that potentially target every single protein that is involved in cancer and other diseases.
“The project aims to establish generic rules for how to inhibit these complex protein-protein interactions,” says Dr Wilson.“If we know more about this, we’ll have many more options when it comes to designing drugs – and the results are likely to be more effective.
“Astbury is already renowned for its cutting-edge, multidisciplinary research and we aim to exploit the unique combination of synthesis, biophysics and structural molecular biology to address this major worldwide challenge in the coming years.”
For further information go to http://www.chem.leeds.ac.uk/People/Wilson.html
