Only 2% of cancer drugs are approved for treating high-grade brain tumours.
Most of these patients are excluded from clinical trials and die within less than a year.
Survival rates have changed little over the past several decades.
Under-representation of these patients in clinical cancer research and drug development has limited their treatment options.
Our mission is to discover and develop treatments that significantly improve survival in patients with brain and other hard-to-treat cancers to fulfil this unmet need.
Tumour Suppressor p53
p53 is a tumour suppressor that is mutated in over 50% of cancers. It ensures cellular integrity by recognizing abnormal or cancerous DNA, in which case it triggers cell death. It is part of our system’s innate immunity and is regarded as the ‘Guardian of the Genome’. It is when p53 is dysfunctional that tumours can grow.
Our research is focused on discovering an effective p53-based therapeutic that boosts and where mutated, restores p53 function to specifically target and kill cancer cells.
As p53 is a common cancer target, upon gaining regulatory approvals for brain cancer treatment, we aim to test the approved therapeutic further for other cancers as well.