CRUK-UCL and Cancer Domain Multidisciplinary Seminar Series

A central dogma in drug discovery is to select those molecules that bind the strongest to the given target. While such an approach works for unique receptors, such as a pathogen or mutated protein, often the target protein is not uniquely expressed by the target tissue. Here, the high-affinity increases off-target interaction leading to side-effects, sometimes outweighing the therapeutic effect. A way around such a lack of selectivity is to target cells combining weak interactions generating association by entropy-driven binding, ergo the final interaction results from a combination of several events linked to the actual target phenotype, i.e. receptors composition and concentration. Recently we lay out the principles of what we defined here as phenotypic targeting (Tian et al.) and we show we can implement in targeting cancer cells and blood-brain barrier cells. Here we will introduce the physics behind multivalent and multiplexed interaction and how we transform this into the chemical design of nanomedicines that have to potential to target specific subcellular populations or even personalised to the single individual.

Multidisciplinary seminars showcase research across UCL and beyond with a focus on cancer to encourage new collaborations between UCL cancer researcher with different specialisms. We encourage you all to attend to explore areas outside your current research focus.

If you would like to join online, please contact Emily McLean ci.crukcentre@ucl.ac.uk

Further information

• Prof Giuseppe Battaglia academic profile
• Dr Stefano Angioletti-Uberti academic profile
• CRUK-UCL Centre events

Upcoming multidisciplinary seminars 2020 - Dates TBC

• Replication stress and cancer: a cause and therapeutic opportunity - Professor Rob de Bruin & Dr Marc Mansour
• Professor Jasmin Fisher & Dr Matthew Clarke
• Dr Maria Secrier & Professor Chris Barnes
• Cancer prevention and tobacco use: the role of e-cigarettes - Professor Jamie Brown & Dr Lion Shahab