Development of novel anticancer drugs able to target cancer cells
Cancer is responsible for about three of every ten deaths and is the leading cause of disease burden in Australia. This is largely because conventional chemotherapeutic agents have low specificity for tumour cells, high toxicity for healthy cells and susceptibility to the development of resistance. Thus, there is a need for more effective cancer treatments that are tailored for a specific cancer and are not toxic to healthy cells. As each type of cancer is unique and results from alterations in intracellular pathways, inhibition of specific protein-protein interactions involved in the development of a certain type of cancer is a potential strategy to design safer cancer therapeutics. We are developing peptide-based therapeutics to target and deliver tailored drugs able to cross the cell membrane of tumour cells and specifically inhibit cancer pathways involved in breast cancer, leukaemia and melanoma. From the inside, we can deactivate cancer cells and stop these cancers from growing and spreading, without affecting healthy organs.
Relevant publications:
Henriques, Sónia Troeira, Lawrence, Nicole, Chaousis, Stephanie, Ravipati, Anjaneya S., Cheneval, Olivier, Benfield, Aurélie H., Elliott, Alysha G., Kavanagh, Angela Maria, Cooper, Matthew A., Chan, Lai Yue, Huang, Yen-Hua, & Craik, David J. (2017) Redesigned Spider Peptide with Improved Antimicrobial and Anticancer Properties. ACS Chemical Biology, 12(9), pp. 2324-2334.(https://eprints.qut.edu.au/124525/)
Philippe, Grégoire, Huang, Yen-Hua, Cheneval, Olivier, Lawrence, Nicole, Zhang, Zhen, Fairlie, David P, Craik, David J., de Araujo, Aline Dantas, & Henriques, Sónia Troeira (2016) Development of cell-penetrating peptide-based drug leads to inhibit MDMX:p53 and MDM2:p53 interactions. Biopolymers, 106(6), pp. 853-863. (https://eprints.qut.edu.au/124512/)
D’Souza, Charlotte, Henriques, Sónia Troeira, Wang, Conan K., Cheneval, Olivier, Chan, Lai Yue, Bokil, Nilesh J., Sweet, Matthew J., & Craik, David J. (2016) Using the MCoTI-II cyclotide scaffold to design a stable cyclic peptide antagonist of SET, a protein overexpressed in human cancer. Biochemistry, 55(2), pp. 396-405. (https://eprints.qut.edu.au/124507/)
Troeira Henriques, Sónia, Huang, Yen-Hua, Chaousis, Stephanie, Wang, Conan K., & Craik, David J. (2014) Anticancer and toxic properties of cyclotides are dependent on phosphatidylethanolamine phospholipid targeting. ChemBioChem, 15(13), pp. 1956-1965.(https://eprints.qut.edu.au/124500/)
Henriques, Sónia Troeira & Craik, David J. (2010) Cyclotides as templates in drug design. Drug Discovery Today, 15(1-2), pp. 57-64.(https://eprints.qut.edu.au/124485/)