MOSCOW, September 27 (RIA Novosti) - A study conducted by chemists from the Imperial College, UK has established a drug-like molecule that can block enzymes, which cause a range of diseases including cancer, epilepsy and Alzheimer’s, and hope to develop a super drug that will be able to treat these range of diseases in 10 years’ time, according to a report on a study published on the Imperial College’s website.
“We have already identified several very potent drug-like NMT inhibitors that are active in animal disease models, and we hope to move towards clinical trials over the next five to ten years,” Imperial College quoted the lead researcher, Professor Ed Tate from their chemistry department.
In the study published in the Nature Communications journal, chemists used living human cancer cells to identify more than 100 proteins that the enzyme called N-myristoyltransferase (NMT) modifies. Almost all the proteins were identified for the first time in their natural environment.
As part of their research that has been going on for several years, the team applied a process similar to that in chemotherapy. They programmed the human cancer cells to die and discovered that the NMT enzyme stopped the cell from dying.
“We now have a much fuller picture of how NMT operates, and more importantly how it can be inhibited,” Tate said, adding that this understanding would enable them to find out, which other diseases except cancer could be combatted.
The researchers at the Imperial College are working in collaboration with the Institute of Cancer Research on developing the drug that can switch off the NMT enzyme and hopefully provide treatment for cancer patients and other types of diseases.
“This is the first time that we have been able to look in molecular detail at how this potential drug target works within an entire living cancer cell, so this is a really exciting step forward,” Tate said in the Imperial College report.
