Monday, February 2, 11 AM
Bldg. 38A, B2 Conference room
 
 
Andrei V. Gudkov, Ph.D., D.Sci.
SVP for Basic Science / Chair, Department of Cell Stress Biology
Roswell Park Cancer Institute
Buffalo, NY 

 
 
Evolutionary approaches to drug discovery


Natural libraries of mutated proteins created during replication and
recombination of retroviruses led to discovery of oncogenes that remain
to be most promising anticancer treatment targets. We have been using
similar strategy to approach other potential drug targets by creating
genetic libraries of truncated proteins which helped to generate rich
material for selection of cells with a variety of properties by applying
a series of "smart" selection tricks. This approach, which by itself has
passed through several steps of "progressive evolution", allowed us to
uncover new mechanisms involved in control of p53, NF-kB and Fas
pathways and, in its novel modification, leads to isolation of protein
drugs. I will also discuss several other evolutionary approaches we are
using in our target and drug discovery program.