Dr. Rahman Shah Zaib Saleem, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and Dr. Amir Faisal, Associate Professor, Department of Biology have published research paper titled “Synthesis and evaluation of modified chalcone based p53 stabilizing agents”, in Bioorganic Medicinal Chemistry Letters.
p53 is an important cellular protein that prevents the development of cancer by halting division and inducing death in faulty cells. Many cancer cells, therefore, learn to directly or indirectly inactivate this protein. Such cancers show resistance towards the chemo- and radiotherapeutic agents. Cells, where p53 is indirectly inactivated, can be killed by re-activation of p53.
The research groups of Dr. Saleem and Dr. Faisal are working in close collaboration to identify next generation cancer drugs. Drugs that can reactivate p53 have the promise to improve the efficiency of the current chemotherapeutics. In this paper, the authors have identified novel compounds that can stabilize p53 in colon and breast cancer cells lines.
“We are working towards improving the activity and selectivity of these compounds towards specific cellular targets for further probing of cellular mechanism of action of these compounds” commented Dr. Saleem.
The paper can be read at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960894X17307382
