Scientists using virtual experiments to reach cancer targets

Scientists funded by Cancer Research UK are using virtual experiments in a bid to find the best methods for drug discovery.

The findings have been published in the Nature Reviews Drug Discovery journal, with the work combining a unique online database entitled canSARA with a new tool to enable researchers to compare a maximum of 500 potential drug targets within minutes.

Thanks to this technology, scientists across the globe will be able to systematically analyse unprecedented volumes and varieties of data, allowing them to uncover new drug targets to help with the development of treatments.

Experts at Cancer Research UK's Cancer Therapeutics Unit at the Institute of Cancer Research in London created the new method.

Researchers illustrated the effectiveness of their technology by assessing the Sanger Institute's list of 479 cancer genes, uncovering 46 potentially druggable cancer proteins.

Professor Paul Workman, director of the Cancer Research UK Cancer Therapeutics Unit and deputy chief executive at The Institute of Cancer Research, said: "Our new approach will help researchers worldwide to address three major issues that we face today in developing new cancer drugs for personalised medicine.

"Firstly, it will empower scientists to select the very best targets that are most likely to lead to successful drugs, thereby increasing the success rate in the clinic."

Mr Workman continued by saying that the approach will allow researchers to find new drugs more quickly and at a lower cost.

As well as this, the technology will help to shift the focus away from tried and tested drug targets, driving innovation in the process.

These latest findings come after Cancer Research UK research found that androgen receptor fuels advance prostate cancer by switching on genes that were previously unassociated with the disease.

The study discovered that, when androgen is absent from the blood, the androgen receptor fuels the disease by turning on an entirely different gene set.

Up to 41,000 men in Britain are diagnosed with prostate cancer on a yearly basis, making it the most common cancer in UK males.