Seed Grant in Cancer and Evolution
PIs are Antonio Baines and Lee Graves, North Carolina Central University and UNC-Chapel Hill. Drug resistance is a major barrier when it comes to successfully treating cancers, such as pancreatic cancer, demonstrating the need for better and more improved drugs. Unfortunately, treatment with cancer drugs (ex. kinase inhibitors) can potentially lead to the acquiring of DNA mutations in the cell which can help to promote drug resistance. Also, compensatory cell signaling pathways can become activated after treatment resulting in drug resistance. In order to address these concerns, we are proposing to develop a high throughput screening method for identifying novel kinase inhibitors that can impede cancer cell growth as well as enhance existing therapies for pancreatic cancer through better combination strategies.
Publications:
Krulikas LJ, McDonald IM, Lee B, et al. (2018). Application of integrated drug screening/kinome analysis to identify inhibitors of gemcitabine-resistant pancreatic cancer cell growth. SLAS Discovery 23(8): 850-861.
