$6.5 million federal grant support research for two new anti-cancer drugs.
January 17th, 2008 | by askadmin |Cancer Center Receives Grant To Continue Research On 2 Drugs
From The KOLD News 13 Newsroom
Posted: Jan 14, 2008 08:09 PM
The Arizona Cancer Center’s Therapeutic Development Program is getting a five-year, $6.5 million federal grant that will support research projects involving two new anti-cancer drugs.
PX-12 and Imexon are drugs that target cancer-causing proteins.
They are in early phase clinical trials.
Robert Dorr is co-director of the center’s Therapeutic Development Program and principal investigator for the grant.
He says, “The new drugs are designed to kill tumor cells by creating stress related to oxygen levels inside cancer cells, which is a novel mechanism for new anti-cancer drugs.”
In a news release, the Arizona Cancer Center says “PX-12 targets a cancer-causing protein that is overexpressed in colon, pancreatic, gastric and lung cancers.”
The cancer center says Imexon “first showed activity against multiple myeloma and is being tested in patients with melanoma, lung, breast and prostate cancers. The grant’s second project, led by Dorr, will test Imexon in a clinical trial in combination with another drug, Gemcitabine, for effectiveness against pancreatic cancer and will develop new drugs similar to Imexon.”