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BIOTEK2021-Bioteknologi for verdiskaping

Kinase Modulators from Marine Bioprospecting

Awarded: NOK 8.4 mill.

Project Number:

209109

Project Period:

2011 - 2015

Subject Fields:

Approximately 40% of the population living in Norway today will receive a cancer diagnosis in their lifetime and many will die from their disease. Despite several decades of intensive research efforts, the therapeutic options for treating cancer are still limited to traditional interventions based on surgery, radiation- or chemotherapy are still widely used. In many cases these treatments are not effective enough, or have serious complicating side effects. Protein kinase enzymes plays a central role in the regulation of celluar signalling. The phosphorylation of proteins is the most important regulatory mechanism to control cellular processes in eucaryotic organisms. In this way, activity can be modulated and biological responses inhibited, stimulated o r turned on or off. It is known that a number of diseases such as cancer, chronic inflammation and metabolic diseases, are related to dysfunctional regulation of specific protein kinase enzymes. As much as 30% of all drug discovery efforts today are dire cted towards finding novel drugs and drug-fragments that modulate protein kinases, and several marketed drugs are available to treat specific cancer types. Despite this, there is considered to be a large unmet need and commercial potential for the develo pment of novel kinase modulating drugs. Lytix Biopharma has access to novel molecular scaffolds through our collaborations with the marine bioprospecting groups in Tromsø (MabCent) and other academic partners. Such structures (hits) are systematically scr eened for kinase modulating properties. Furthermore, Lytix Biopharma has strong medicinal chemistry competencies and access to X-ray crystallography for the further optimisation of chemical scaffolds into a well-defined lead serie. The present applicati on aims to use the unique source of molecular scaffolds in order to develop lead series of kinase modulators and ultimately to select a Lead Candidate suitable for further formal drug development.

Funding scheme:

BIOTEK2021-Bioteknologi for verdiskaping