A team led by Cyrus Vaziri and William Janzen at 黑料网 have received a grant from the National Institutes of Health for research that could help make chemotherapy drugs more effective.
Vaziri, the lead principal investigator on the grant, is an associate professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and joint professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the 黑料网. Janzen is the director of assay development and compound profiling at the at the 黑料网 Eshelman School of Pharmacy.
The R01 grant will provide up to $860,000 over three years to support the development of drugs that will improve existing cancer therapies.
Some chemotherapy drugs work by damaging the DNA of cancer cells. However, many cancer cells acquire DNA damage tolerance by activating a mechanism called trans-lesion synthesis.
鈥淲e are looking at ways that we can block the activities of key proteins in this mechanism,鈥� Janzen says. 鈥淭his approach will increase the efficacy of some of the front-line chemotherapy drugs such as cisplatin and might provide an effective new strategy for targeting chemo-resistant cancer cells.鈥�
Vaziri and Janzen are members of the . Preliminary data for the grant application were generated through studies supported by the , a nation-leading investment to stimulate cancer research and reduce North Carolina鈥檚 leading cause of death.