Scientists from the Cima and the University of Navarra Clinic identified in 2017 A molecule that improves the survival of animal models with acute leukemias and lymphomas. The results, published in the journal Nature Communications, open up a therapeutic avenue for patients with haematological tumours with a worse prognosis. The international jury of the Dr. Antoni Esteve Foundation Research Award, endowed with 18,000 euros, has considered the article as the best pharmacology work published by a Spanish author in the last two years. The award-winning article is signed by Edurne San José-Enériz and Xabier Agirre as first authors and Felipe Prosper as director of the research.
The treatment of haematological tumours has acquired a new approach thanks to the administration of epigenetic drugs that are based on molecular modifications that alter the activity of genes in the development of cancer. This group from Navarre designed a molecule called CM-272, which simultaneously blocks the activity of two epigenetic enzymes involved in the development of different types of tumors, histone methyltransferase (G9a) and DNA methyltransferase (DNMT1).
This molecule, therefore, induces the cell death of acute myeloid leukaemia, acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, explain doctors Julen Oyarzabal, director of the Molecular Therapies Programme at CIMA, and Felipe Prósper, co-director of the Haematology Service at the University of Navarra Clinic.
The results, confirmed in animals, are a fundamental first step for the development of new compounds as a possible treatment in patients with these tumors, which would act as a complementary strategy to current treatments. According to the researchers, CM-272 is presented as a selective drug and represents a new, safer and more effective therapeutic approach for hematological tumors that currently have a poor prognosis.
This is the sixteenth award of the Dr. Antoni Esteve Foundation Research Award, which is awarded to the best pharmacology work published by a Spanish author in the last two years in any of its aspects (design, synthesis, galenic development, clinical or laboratory evaluation, use, etc.). The international tribunal has also decided to highlight, among the 33 articles sent throughout this call, a Honorable Mention to the article Clinical validation of blood/brain glutamate grabbing in acute ischemic stroke, published in 2018 in the journalAnnals of Neurology by Clinical Neuroscience Research Laboratory of the Health Research Institute of Santiago de Compostela.
It is a research for the treatment of stroke that describes from in vitro drug screening strategies to in vivo preclinical validation and that demonstrates for the first time in a clinical trial the efficacy of the use of glutamate trappers in ischemic patients, paving the way for new strategies.
KEYWORDS | Basic pharmacology, research award, cancer, leukaemia