Brief description:

Neuroblastoma is a deadly childhood tumour which causes around 15% of the cancer deaths of children. Its resistance to standard chemotherapies has made it a challenging condition to treat. Therefore, the evaluation of new innovative therapies for neuroblastoma remains critical. Our laboratory over the past 30 years has developed a series of frontier therapeutics for cancer, such as Dp44mT and DpC, which inhibit tumour growth by a unique mechanism. These drugs have shown marked anti-proliferative activity against neuroblastoma.

Our latest innovative anti-cancer drug candidates, the ‘PPPT series’, demonstrate pronounced anti-cancer activity that supersedes both our previous leads, Dp44mT and DpC. This novel series of anti-cancer agents has the ability to overcome the “Triad of Death” in cancer, namely: metastasis, primary tumour growth and resistance to chemotherapy mediated by P-glycoprotein.

This project is focused on exploring the selective anti-proliferative activity of the ‘PPPT series’ relative to standard chemotherapies against neuroblastoma cells. Also, investigating the molecular mechanism of action of these agents on major molecular targets, such as potent oncogene, N-Myc and metastasis suppressor, NDRG1 is expected to be achieved through this project.