Fluorinering av peptid baserade anticancer läkemedel
- Diarienummer
- ID21-0069
- Projektledare
- Szabo, Kalman
- Start- och slutdatum
- 220101-261231
- Beviljat belopp
- 2 500 000 kr
- Förvaltande organisation
- Stockholm University
- Forskningsområde
- Livsvetenskaperna
Summary
Projektet är inriktat till utveckling av kväve baserade läkemedel, som används i behandling av lymfom och andra cancerformer. Positron Emission Tomography (PET) med fluor-18 spårämne kommer att användas för att studera viktiga biokemiska processer av dessa läkemedel i levande organismer. Detta kräver utveckling av nya organisk-kemiska metoder för så kallad "late-stage" syntes av fluorerade cancerläkemedel. Sen används metoden för fluor-18 märkning av läkemedelsmolekyler. Resultat från PET studier kommer att hjälpa för utveckling av nästa generation av cancerläkemedel mot lymfom och liknande cancerformer. Studierna kommer genomföras vid Stockholms universitet och företaget Oncopeptides (Stockholm). Prof. Kálmán J. Szabó (SU) och Dr. Fredrik Lehmann (företaget) som skulle bli doktorandhandledare. Starka akademiska (SU) och industriella (Oncopeptides) forskningsmiljöer garanterar ett framgångsrikt industridoktorandprojekt.
Populärvetenskaplig beskrivning
Cardiovascular diseases and cancer are the most common causes for mortality. Medical treatment of cancer imposes large psychosocial and economic burden to the society. The American cancer society estimated that cancer has an annual worldwide economic impact of $895 billion (1.5% of gross domestic product), which larger than heart diseases. The latest publication from Cancerfonden and Socialstyrelsen reports 57 726 newly diagnosed cancer patients and approx. 22 000 cases of death in 2011. The steady improvements in therapy have already led to a significant increase of 5-year and 10-year survival rates to ca. 72% and 65%, respectively. Apparently, improved cancer therapy is very important for the society for decreasing of the patient's suffering by improving the life quality and reduction of the death cases. Milder therapies by combination of radiation therapy, surgery and specific drugs are the most desired. The specifity of the drugs can be increased by conscious drug design based on understanding of the action, distribution and uptake of the drugs in the living organisms. The proposed project is focused on study and development of anticancer drugs. Nitrogen based alkylating agents are commonly used in treatment of lymphomas. The study of the biological effects of these drug substances will be studied by Positron Emission Tomography (PET). PET is suitable for in vivo studies of biochemical processes. The PET studies require fluorine-18 labelled derivatives of the anticancer drugs. Fluorine-18 is a positron emitting nucleus with a relatively short half-life (110 minutes). The short life-life imposes a high challenge for synthesis and handling of fluorine-18 labelled compounds. The Ph.D. student working with the project will participate in development of new methodology for fluorine-18 labelled radiotracers and evaluation of the PET imaging studies. Subsequently, new methodology can be developed for synthesis of the next generation anticancer drugs. The Ph.D. student will be supervised by Prof. Kálmán J. Szabó (Stockholm University) and Dr. Fredrik Lehmann (Oncopeptides), having completing expertise in organic fluorine chemistry and drug design. Notably Oncopeptide's anticancer drug Melflufene was recently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.