Developmental Therapeutics Prgm

Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond VA

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

The newly organized Developmental Therapeutics (DT) program consists of a multidisciplinary group of 32 investigators from 11 academic departments from the Schools of Medicine, Nursing, and Pharmacy, and the College of Humanities and Sciences on the Monroe Park Campus, who share common interests in preclinical and clinical aspects of cancer therapeutics. The members of the DT program share the scientific goals of elucidating the processes underlying cancer therapeutics, identifying molecular targets, determining how the molecular genetic profiles of tumors govern sensitivity to agents and combinations of agents, particularly targeted agents, and translating these findings into the design and implementation of novel therapeutic strategies for the treatment of cancer. The membership of the DT program represents disciplines ranging from structural biology (crystallography, high field NMR, and computational chemistry) to clinical trial design and implementation. Program members interact to bridge areas of expertise needed for target identification, characterization, drug design, mechanism of action studies, and validation of therapeutic concepts in test systems of increasing complexity, including early phase trials and Phase II and III validation of therapeutic concepts. The DT program encompasses projects involving therapeutic development of AMPK activators, inhibition of steps in epigenetic pathways, development of novel platinum-containing drugs, combinatorial use of histone deacetylase and methyl-transferase inhibitors, protein kinase inhibitors, proteasome inhibitors, inhibitors of Bcl-2 family proteins, interruption of specific protein:protein interactions, antifolates, novel cyclic peptide inhibitors of kinases, DNA repair processes, and autophagy. Concepts emerging from several of these projects have been or are currently being translated into clinical trials. The DT program has 63 currently active research projects with a funding base of more than $7.5 million in annual direct support, of which $5.5 million is from peer-reviewed funding sources and over $3.3 million is from NCI. The DT program fosters the development of these interactions by organizing regular meetings among subsets of the membership, focused discussion groups involving members with overlapping research interests and inviting translational concepts for Massey Cancer Center (MCC) support. Research from the DT program has produced 242 publications, of which 27% represent intra-programmatic collaborations, 49% inter-programmatic collaborations, and 19% both intra- and inter-programmatic collaborations.