Professor Bernard T. Golding Seminar
Molecular structure of Rucaparib
Professor Golding of Newcastle University and NewChem Technologies today (Oct. 14th) visited DCU and two of our research centres, the NICB and NRF. He delivered an excellent seminar on "Design, Synthesis and Biological Activities of Novel Anticancer Agents" where he spoke of his research at Newcastle that has led to potent inhibitors of cyclin dependent kinase 2 (CDK2) and poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP). This research led directly to the discovery of potent small molecule PARP inhibitors and initiation of a pre-clinical collaboration with Agouron Pharmaceuticals (San Diego) resulted in the identification of rucaparib, the first-in-class PARP inhibitor for clinical evaluation in cancer patients. More than 200 patients have received this Newcastle-Agouron drug rucaparib and in the earliest clinical trials (2003 and 2005), some patients had a life expectancy of only a few months, but of these seven most are still alive and cancer-free.