News from SGC

A new type of drug that targets a genetic weakness in an untreatable childhood brain cancer could become the first ever treatment designed to target the disease.

The prototype treatment could also offer hope for patients with the rare and devastating ‘stone man syndrome’ – in which muscles and ligaments turn to bone.

Scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, led research with an international team of colleagues, finding that the new drug class can kill brain cancer cells with mutations in the ACVR1 gene and shrink tumours in mice.

SGC at the University of Oxford is pleased to announce that two patient foundations, FOP Friends and FOP France, have renewed their long standing partnership with SGC Oxford to support research into the rare congenital syndrome fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP). The research led by Dr Alex Bullock aims to better define the molecular mechanisms that cause FOP and to develop new treatments.

TORONTO (January 29, 2019) – A first-of-its-kind therapy for leukemia discovered by researchers in the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research’s (OICR) Drug Discovery Program, and under preclinical development, has attracted investment from Celgene Corporation that could exceed US$1 billion – which would make it the largest transaction to date for a preclinical asset discovered in Canada.

Lysine acetylation has emerged as a key regulatory modification on histones and other proteins. Histone de-acetylaces (HDACs, the enzymes that remove lysine acetylation (Kac) from histones) are now validated drug targets in cancer, with four FDA approved drugs and several clinical trials seeking to establish higher efficacy and specificity. Kac is recognized by small protein interaction modules called bromodomains (BRDs), leading to the aggregation of complexes involved in transcription and contributing to the control of gene expression (Filippakopoulos et al., 2012; Fujisawa and Filippakopoulos, 2017).