Small-molecule screen revealing apoptosis inhibitors of BAX and BAK

The focus of this project is to screen for small-molecules that may interact with the machinery that controls the decision of life and death in the cell. Diseases can arise from aberrant control of cell life and death like cancer and neurodegeneration. By shutting off the cell death pathway when cells are injured, or stressed to the point that they would ordinarily die, we hope to use small molecule inhibition to allow cells the time they need to recover. The small molecules that we previously published that interact with the apoptosis machinery and successfully inhibit cell death are inappropriate for pre-clinical studies due to off-target activities. A goal of this project is to find additional compounds by adapting our current biochemical assay to a screening format in order to test a large library of compounds. This work will lead to the identification of molecules optimized for interaction with the cellular apoptosis machinery, leading us closer to custom synthesis of therapeutically active compounds.

Faculty Supervisor:

David W Andrews

Student:

Partner:

Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Life Sciences (not health); Biotechnology; Pharmaceuticals

University:

University of Toronto

Program: