Newswise — PHILADELPHIA–(Dec. 2, 2014)–Maureen Murphy, Ph.D., Wistar Institute Professor and Program leader of the Molecular and Cellular Oncogenesis Program; Donna George, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine Associate Professor of Genetics; and Julie Leu, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine Research Assistant Professor in Genetics, were announced as winners by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) of the 2014 Discovery Fast Track Challenge. The program is designed to accelerate the translation of research into potential and novel drug therapies.
Murphy and her team will work with scientists in GSK’s Discovery Partnerships with Academia (DPAc) and the Molecular Discovery Research teams to screen their target against GSK’s compound collection. Active compounds could then form the basis of full drug discovery programs that are expected to ultimately lead to innovative medicines for cancer therapy.
Murphy and her team represent one of six winning projects in the U.S. and Canada who will partner with GSK scientists. Murphy’s team will target Heat Shock Protein 70 (HSP70), a stress-induced survival protein that is expressed at very low levels in normal cells, but is markedly overexpressed in the majority of human tumors. Murphy and her group have discovered that HSP70 in tumor cells is altered in such a way that inhibitors that inactivate this protein work only in tumor cells, and not in normal cells. This fact, coupled with the considerable overexpression of HSP70 in cancer, lends for a unique therapeutic window for cancer therapy. Murphy and her team contend that the unique reliance on HSP70 by tumor cells is an “Achilles heel” for cancer.
Murphy’s expertise on HSP70 is based on her own discovery, along with Drs. George and Leu in 2009, of a novel series of HSP70 inhibitors that they used to successfully treat mouse models of lymphoma and melanoma. Her knowledge of this inhibitor, coupled with her long-standing history of research success on apoptosis, autophagy and pre-clinical cancer models, will combine with GSK’s state-of-the-art capabilities to screen targets, interpret results, and test toxicity. This complimentary collaboration, which lies at the intersection of academia and pharma, is expected to more rapidly and efficiently drive the pace of scientific discovery and innovation.
“Academic research only takes you so far. This partnership with GSK will lead us across the ‘Valley of Death,’ that middle ground where promising targets often go to die for a variety of reasons,” said Wistar’s Murphy. “Together with GSK we can more confidently traverse this valley, and harness the possibility of bringing promising academic research toward clinical benefit to ultimately save lives.”
The Wistar and Penn alliance, which has worked together for the past 16 years, was one of 14 winning proposals, chosen from 428 entries from 234 universities and academic institutes from across 26 countries.
The Wistar Institute is an international leader in biomedical research with special expertise in cancer research and vaccine development. Founded in 1892 as the first independent nonprofit biomedical research institute in the country, Wistar has long held the prestigious Cancer Center designation from the National Cancer Institute. The Institute works actively to ensure that research advances move from the laboratory to the clinic as quickly as possible. The Wistar Institute: Today’s Discoveries – Tomorrow’s Cures. On the Web at www.wistar.org
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