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Dundee mathematicians aid anti-cancer drug development
The development of a new breed of "targeted" anti-cancer drugs is being helped by mathematicians at the University of Dundee.
Dr Fordyce Davidson and Professor Mark Chaplain, both of the Division of Mathematics at the University of Dundee, have been awarded £160,000 to work with biotechnology company Cyclacel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. to develop the effective use of new anti-cancer drugs.
The grant from the EPSRC will fund a collaboration on one of Cyclacel's new drug candidate, CYC116, one of a new breed of "targeted" anti-cancer drugs which are specifically designed to selectively kill cancer cells.
The Dundee mathematicians will work with Cyclacel's scientists, to produce models of how the dose of Cyclacel's drug candidate impacts on tumour cell death and how this is reflected in the concentrations of biomarkers in the blood stream.
Dr Davidson said the advances being made in applying mathematical models to cancer diagnosis and treatment could help usher in a new era of personalised medicine.
Dr Robert Jackson, Cyclacel's Chief Scientific Officer commented, "The drug development process is becoming increasingly computer-intensive. The mathematical approaches being developed by Dundee University and those which we are using at Cyclacel together with our own biomarker analysis will help drug developers to interpret their biomarker data, and in the long term may increase drug development success rates and match patient treatments to their individual circumstances."
The project is being funded by the EPSRC via the 'Mathematics for Business' scheme.