Tuesday 26 November 2002
Today scientists from The Institute of Cancer Research, University College London and Birkbeck, University of London, formally established the company Domainex. The company will work on cutting edge science to create pieces of the protein molecules encoded by cancer causing genes, which can then be targeted for drug development.
The technology developed by the new company will greatly assist work already carried out by The Institute where Structural Biologists study the 3D structures of protein molecules involved in cancer to understand how they work, how they go wrong in cancer, and how they can be stopped by drugs.
The protein molecules are too small to be seen individually even with the most powerful microscopes. Instead, biologists must grow crystals of the protein, which are analysed using powerful X-rays in a technique called protein crystallography, to define the 3D shape. However many of the proteins linked with cancer are very difficult to make in useful amounts and are too large and flexible to grow good crystals. The technology developed by Domainex, Combinatorial Domain Hunting, allows biologists to find smaller pieces (called domains) of these big proteins, which contain the main functions of the whole protein, but which are much easier to make, and are far easier to crystallise and use for drug development.
The Institute of Cancer Research has already identified a stable domain in a protein called Hsp90 which is involved in the growth of many kinds of cancer, and in conjunction with The Royal Marsden Hospital are developing and testing drugs which can inhibit its function.
Professor Laurence Pearl, a Director and Chairman of the company and Scientist at The Institute of Cancer Research said, “Until Domainex developed its technology, finding these stable functional domains and making them in the quantities needed for modern drug discovery was a laborious hit-and-miss process. The establishment of Domainex means this cutting edge work can now be done rapidly. It will also let us attract new types of funding, to build a successful company generating income for The Institute and speed up the process of translating outputs from basic research into new drugs for patients.”
Domainex has already received £250,000 in funding from Bloomsbury Bioseed. Its Fund Manager, Stephane Mery, said “Bloomsbury Bioseed is delighted to be involved with this company which will be able to make its product quickly available to other organisations for research and drug development and form the basis for future breakthroughs in cancer treatments.”
The research is to be performed initially at Birkbeck in its school of Crystallography, under the supervision of its co-founder and Director, Dr Renos Savva. Using a state of the art high-throughput robotic workstation, the first potential drug targets will be screened and the production process honed to allow rapid identification of the key soluble domains. Dr Savva said “This new technology marks an important addition to the arsenal of modern drug discovery, and we aim to develop a reliably generic process to allow research to begin on hitherto inaccessible molecules of great medical importance.”
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For more information, please contact:
Marie MacLean
Press Officer
Institute of Cancer Research
Tel: 020 7970 6056
Email: [email protected]
Notes to editors
- The image attached shows the structure of a functional domain from the HSP90 protein,
(a current hot target in anti-cancer drug development) with the natural product inhibitor radiciol bound to the active site.
- The Institute of Cancer Research is one of the world's leading cancer research organisations and is internationally renowned for the quality of its science. Its mission is the relief of human suffering by pursuing excellence in the fight against cancer. The Institute is an associate institution of the University of London. The Institute works in a unique partnership with The Royal Marsden Hospital and together they form Europe’s largest comprehensive cancer centre.
Please note:
Unfortunately the press office are unable to answer queries from the general public. For general cancer information please refer to The Institute's cancer information page.