Research & Development

Curve Therapeutics has announced that its chief scientific officer, Professor Ali Tavassoli, has published research in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS), assessing dual hypoxia inducible factors (HIF)-1 and -2 inhibitors in cancer treatment.

The company is currently developing a non-peptidic, small-molecule dual inhibitor of HIF-1 and HIF-2 with first-in-class potential, which will inhibit the interaction of both HIF-1α and HIF-2α with HIF-1β.

The company has used its Microcyle discovery platform to ‘screen directly inside mammalian cells, allowing for the identification of biologically active library members within an intracellular environment where both the library and the target are present in their native conformations,’ according to the company’s press release.

Professor Ali Tavassoli, chief scientific officer of Curve Therapeutics, commented: “It is well-recognised that HIF plays a key role in the survival and growth of solid tumours. The compounds we report in this paper inhibit the protein-protein interaction of the two subunits that form the HIF transcription factor. We show that these compounds prevent the hypoxia-induced activity of this transcription factor, stopping hypoxia-response in cell-based assays. This paper underlines the promising therapeutic potential of dual HIF inhibition as an approach for the treatment of a variety of cancers.”