Cancer and autoimmunity are “often thought of as being at opposite ends of the immune response,” Ana Anderson told her audience at a joint meeting of the NIH’s Office of Autoimmune Disease Research and Office of Research in Women’s Health earlier this month. Cancer, that line of reasoning goes, arises when the immune system is not good enough at recognizing harmful autoantigens. Autoimmunity arises when it is hypervigilant, mistaking harmless autoantigens for problematic ones and going on the attack. Read More
Endocrine therapy against the estrogen receptor (ER) is widely used for the treatment of ER+ breast cancer. Selective estrogen receptor degraders (SERDs) compete directly with estrogen for ER binding and create an unstable protein complex that leads to proteasome-mediated ER protein degradation. Read More
Claudin 18.2 (CLDN18.2) is a member of the claudin family and is overexpressed in gastric, gastroesophageal junction and pancreatic cancer, among others. Researchers from Elevation Oncology Inc. recently presented preclinical efficacy data on the combination of EO-3021, an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) targeting CLDN18.2, with VEGFR-2 or PD-1 inhibitors in models of gastric adenocarcinoma. Read More
Cyclins and cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) regulate the activity of E2F and Rb to drive cell cycle progression. Disrupting this interaction has shown lethality in cancer cells harboring alterations that lead to higher expression of E2F1. Read More
Biohaven Ltd.’s BHV-7000, a selective Kv7.2/7.3 potassium channel activator, is in phase II/III development for the treatment of focal epilepsy, generalized epilepsy, bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder. The company recently presented findings from preclinical testing assessing the candidate’s potential for the treatment of comorbidities associated with epilepsy. Read More
Insilico Medicine Inc. has synthesized ubiquitin carboxyl-terminal hydrolase 1 (USP1) inhibitors reported to be useful for the treatment of cancer. Read More
Researchers from Novacyte Therapeutics Co. Ltd. presented preclinical data for NC-18, a novel HER2-targeting antibody drug conjugate (ADC) being developed for the treatment of HER2-positive/expressing advanced solid tumors. Read More
Sunshine Lake Pharma Co Ltd. has divulged non-receptor tyrosine-protein kinase TYK2 inhibitors reported to be useful for the treatment of multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, atopic dermatitis, scleroderma, lupus nephritis, systemic lupus erythematosus and ulcerative colitis, among others. Read More
Poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors are used as maintenance therapy after completion of platinum-based chemotherapy in ovarian cancer. However, acquired or de novo resistance to PARP inhibitors is frequent and limits their application. Read More
Additional early-stage research and drug discovery news in brief, from: Aptose Biosciences, Cereno Scientific, Iteos Therapeutics, Medicenna Therapeutics. Read More
