A Drug Discovery Partnership for Personalized Breast Cancer Therapy

Abstract : Xavier University of Louisiana is in the unique position of developing capability in drug discovery especially in the areas of cancer and health disparities. A significant proportion of the funded research on Xavier s campus including collaborative projects involving Tulane University are related to cancer, drug design, synthesis, and drug delivery. This project expands the partnership between Xavier University and Tulane Cancer Center to develop and validate drugs for breast cancer therapy. The Drug Design Team at Xavier consists of experts in computer-aided drug design methods and synthesis and has formed a productive partnership with the Cancer Drug Validation Team at the Tulane Cancer Center. This inter-university collaboration involves training Xavier researchers, including undergraduate students, to carryout the experiments necessary to determine if new compounds would be suitable as new drugs to treat breast cancer. Three separate studies are ongoing as subprojects: (1) Design and synthesis of novel ceramide analogs that potentially reverse chemotherapy drug resistance, (2) Design and synthesis of small molecule inhibitors of HER2 tyrosine kinase to suppress tumorigenesis, and (3) Identification of compounds with the potential for estrogen receptor activity.