Stanford Researchers Find New Solution To Speed Up Drug Research

Researchers at Stanford University have found a way to help speed up the drug discovery process. The researchers studied kinase proteins, which are responsible for exchanging messages and regulating the actions of other proteins throughout the body. Stanford researchers discovered a way to observe and report the behavior of the kinase proteins as they operate inside of living cells—something that was not previously possible. “We've been able to observe multiple kinases functioning in living cells, which is something no one else has ever seen," said Markus Covert, who works as an assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford, and who was also the lead author of the study.

Many drugs aim to regulate the activity of kinase proteins, since these proteins often directly contribute to the growth of cancer cells. Kinase proteins displaying irregular behavior might tell a cell to continue to grow, for example. “Cancers can occur when a kinase inappropriately tells a cell to 'grow, grow, grow'," Covert continued. "The reverse can also be true, if a cell reaches what should be the end of its normal life-span but the kinase never says 'die, die, die'."

Researchers at Stanford were able to compare kinase activity in healthy cells and in diseased or cancer afflicted ones. By being able to observe and compare the two scenarios, Covert believes that academics and drug companies could test experimental drugs to see how kinase activity would be affected. The drugs most likely to be affected by the research are drugs that regulate Kinase activity, and there are currently two dozen of those drugs on the market, produced by companies such as Genentech, Novartis, Roche, Amgen, and Takeda.

The Stanford research was partially funded by the National Institutes of Health and NIH Pioneer Award, and the Stanford Office of Technology Licensing has filed for a provisional patent. The study was published in the scientific journal Cell.