A new and comprehensive drug development strategy that starts with extensive screening of potential targeting peptides to rapidly identify prototype small-molecule drugs has produced two that target the EGFR and VEGFR pathways in novel ways, according to a research team led by scientists at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center "The conceptual advance here is to demonstrate how to go rapidly from screening to structural-functional analysis to drug prototype in a few years," said co-senior author Dr. Wadih Arap, of the David H. Koch Center at M.D. Anderson. "The practical outcome is a pair of new drug candidates, one that acts as a decoy to inhibit a cancer-promoting pathway and another that blocks angiogenesis (the development of new blood vessels), which has the potential to treat both cancer and retinopathies that cause blindness," said co-senior author Dr. Renata Pasqualini, also of the David H. Koch Center. The group's approach begins by screening the target receptors with a phage display library used by Drs. Arap and Pasqualini. This method screens billions of viral particles that each display a different peptide on its outer coat to find those that fit into the receptor as a key goes into a lock. Candidate peptides are next winnowed by using structural and functional analysis. Once a peptide is identified and tested, the researchers take an additional step to synthesize a new version of the peptide more suited for use as a drug.
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