School of Biosciences

Research Overview

I am involved in the cell based screening for small molecule inhibitors of the Wnt signaling pathway. The project is conducted in close collaboration with Merck-Serono and the Institute of Cancer Research and Cancer Research Technology.

The Wnt signaling pathway is deregulated in several types of human cancer, including colon and breast, where it plays a central role in tumor cell growth and progression.

We are identifying Wnt active compounds using high-throughput screening approaches - a series of deconvolution studies focused on compound series that selectively kill cancer cell lines with constitutive Wnt signaling.

Our initial screen using The Cancer Research UK Centre for Cancer Therapeutics diverse chemical library resulted in identification of 4 hit compounds that have activity in a range of assays (Cancer Res [2010] 70, 5963–73). These molecules could be attractive candidates for further pharmaceutical development.

 Fig. Attrition of compounds going through the primary and deconvolution assays