Synthetic Organic & Medicinal Chemistry PhD: Novel bifunctional molecules for drug delivery and specificity: a new approach to the treatment of mesothelioma

The Project:
In developing a new therapeutic agent, there are two questions to address: how to get the potential drug to the specific site in the body where it is needed and second, does it do what we want it to do at the target site and without undesirable side effects. These requirements are incredibly challenging e.g. how do you ensure that an anti-cancer drug reaches the tumour and only kills tumour cells and not healthy cells in the body?

Mesothelioma is a rare and fatal lung cancer, always associated with asbestos exposure. There is no current cure for mesothelioma. The amino acid arginine is essential in the development of various lung cancers. While most healthy cells are able to produce their own arginine, cancer cells lack this ability, and thus depriving them of arginine slows their growth: the ‘achilles heel’ of lung cancers.

The overall aim of the project is to address the problems of drug delivery and site selectivity by developing a series of bifunctional molecules, designed to solve both problems simultaneously. The underlying principle is simple: rather than depriving a tumour of arginine, we will use the arginine structural motif as a targeting system to deliver a highly potent anti-cancer agent directly to the tumour. The project will involve the chemical synthesis of libraries of arginine-like drug conjugates. The successful student may, if they wish, also be involved in the biological evaluation of the compounds prepared.
For full project details, please contact Professor Dobbs directly.

The candidate:
The project would be suitable for anyone with a strong background in synthetic chemistry and interest in the medicinal chemistry of cancer and in drug development. The project will be supervised by Professor Adrian Dobbs (synthesis/medicinal chemistry, www.gre.ac.uk/engsci/study/pharchemenv/staff/adrian-dobbs), with the biological studies being conducted in collaboration with Dr Simon Richardson at the University of Greenwich and a team at Bart’s Cancer Institute, London. However the main focus for the successful candidate will be synthetic & medicinal chemistry.

Research Environment:
The successfully candidate will join a highly active research group (3 postdocs, 4 PhD students) in newly refurbished synthesis laboratories. The Department is extremely well equipped with analytical equipment (including 4xNMR spectrometers, large mass spectrometry suite).

Training:
The student will receive training in organic synthesis, medicinal chemistry and drug design. Transferable skills, such as reporting of results orally and in writing, time management, project planning and management will be developed through university courses, Group meetings and conference attendance/presentations.

Further, the project is funded from the Doctoral Training Alliance (DTA) in Applied Biosciences for Health, a postgraduate training initiative from the University Alliance. As such, the successful candidate will also attend various inter-university training events associated with this DTA.