Publications and Success Stories

Bangi E., Murgia C., Teague A., Sansom O., and Cagan R. (2016). Functional exploration of colorectal cancer genomes using Drosophila. Nature Communications, doi: 10.1038/ncomms13615. PMC5141297

• Novel fly colorectal cancer models were used to demonstrate that increasing genetic complexity can lead to drug resistance.

Kunal Kumar, Peter Man-Un Ung, Peng Wang, Hui Wang, Hailing Li, Mary K. Andrews, Andrew F. Stewart, Avner Schlessinger, Robert J. DeVita (2018). Novel Selective Thiadiazine DYRK1A Inhibitor Lead Scaffold with Human Pancreatic β-cell Proliferation Activity. Eur J Med Chem. 157: 1005–1016.

• A computational screen of a virtual library led to identification of a novel DYK1A inhibitor, proposed to promote beta cell proliferation as a diabetes treatment.

Sonoshita, M., Scopton, A., Ung, P., Murray, M., Silber, L., Maldonado, A., Real, A., Schlessinger, A., Cagan, R., Dar, A. (2018). A Whole Animal Platform to Advance A Clinical Kinase Inhibitor Into New Disease Space. Nature Chem Biol 14(3):291-298. 

• Leveraging a platform that is a featured part of the Center, fly genetics and medicinal/computational chemistry was used to develop sorafenib analogs.

Bangi E, Ang C, Smibert P, Uzilov A, Teague A, Antipin Y, Chen R, Hecht C, Gruszczynski N, Yon W, Malyshev D, Laspina D, Selkridge I, Rainey H, Moe A, Lau CY, Taik P, Wilck E, Bhardwaj A, Sung M, Kim S, Yum K, Sebra R, Donovan M, Misiukiewicz K, Schadt E, Posner M, and Cagan R. (2019). A Personalized Platform Identifies Trametinib Plus Zoledronate For A Patient With KRAS-Mutant Metastatic Colorectal Cancer. Science Advances in press.

• A fly-to-bedside study identifies a novel drug cocktail that led to partial response of a patient’s KRAS-mutant colorectal tumor.

Peter Ung, Masahiro Sonoshita, Alex P. Scopton, Arvin C. Dar, Ross L. Cagan, Avner Schlessinger (2019). Integrated computational and Drosophila cancer model platform captures previously unappreciated chemicals perturbing a kinase network. PLOS Comp. in press.

• Pushing the Center’s platform, a virtual screen was used as the first step in a fly/computational/chemistry approach to develop a novel class of cancer hits.