Chalcone-Ferroptosis Inducer hybrids as dual mechanism anti-cancer agents

Project ID: TECH2026-09
     Formidable success in cancer patient treatment has been achieved by mono therapy, employing a single potent drug designed for a specific therapeutic target.  Mono therapy is simple, practical, and has high patient compliance. With multiple drug prescriptions, patient compliance drops. However, cancer easily circumvents mono-therapy through drug efflux, mutations, or the adoption of a second alternative bypass pathway and clearing the drug out of the system quicker, lowering the drug’s half-life. The cellular ejection of administered drugs by ATP-binding cassette transporter is a major impediment to successful cancer treatment.  Multidrug resistance limits the application of clinically used cancer drugs and renders them ineffective. A combination of two or more drugs that target alternative/multiple cancer pathways may be used to mitigate drug resistance. Therefore, polypharmacology using a cocktail of drugs that target a network of proteins or genes related to the disease of interest is a better alternative. CMF, which is a combination of cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, and fluorouracil, is an example combinatory therapy cocktail approved for nonmetastatic breast cancer treatment. MOPP is another combinatory drug cocktail, combining mechlorethamine hydrochloride, oncovin (vincristine sulfate), procarbazine hydrochloride, and prednisone. This drug combination targets Hodgkin’s lymphoma and breast cancer. Numerous combinatory therapies are in clinical use targeting other drug resistant diseases such HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and bacterial diseases. However, such approaches suffer from differences in the pharmacokinetic properties and uneven spatio-temporal distribution of the drugs used, resulting in fluctuations in drug bioavailability and random drug dosages. This renders cocktail dosing non-reproducible, compromising patient safety, and acts as a precursor for therapy-triggered drug resistance. There is a need for anticancer drugs acting by different mechanisms of action.

Description

Researchers at the University of Toledo have discovered compounds having both an apoptotic cell death-inducing chalcone pharmacophore and a ferroptosis-inducing pharmacophore. Compounds are extremely potent and excel at selectively killing cancer cells.

 

Applications

  • Hybrid compounds used for selectively killing cancer cells.

Advantages

  • Bifunctional hybrid molecules are highly potent cytotoxic agents with potential to prevent metastasis.
  • Hybrid drugs lower dosage errors, side effects, and toxicity while increasing potency and drug efficacy.
  •  Ferroptotic component of the hybrid molecule has the ability to kill cancer stem cells which are resistant to other currently available cancer drugs.

IP Status:                   Patent Pending

Lead Inventors:         L.M. Viranga Tillekeratne, D.Phil.

Keywords:      Apoptosis, Ferroptosis, Hybrid, Cancer, Drug

 

Patent Information: