Cell cycle research awarded million pound grant
UK-based biopharmaceutical company Cyclacel, of Dundee, has been awarded grants of £1.2m (US$1.9m) by the UK government to support research into disrupting cancer mitosis, the process by which cancer cells divide. Cyclacel's scientists are engaged in the validation of large numbers of antimitotic drug targets generated by a large-scale genomic screening effort.
An initial award was made under the government's applied genomics LINK scheme and was part of a joint grant application by Cyclacel and the Department of Genetics at Cambridge University. Cyclacel was awarded a grant of £450,000 ($704,000) in support of work conducted at its Cambridge-based Polgen division, encompassing a genome-wide screen in the Drosophila fruit fly to identify genes involved in mitosis. As a result of the same LINK scheme application, the Department of Genetics at Cambridge University was awarded a grant of £330,000 ($516,000) by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) to support collaborative work, in which Cyclacel has exclusive commercialisation rights.
Cyclacel received a further award of £450,000 ($704,000) from the Scottish Executive under the SpurPlus scheme, which supports highly innovative research and will enable Cyclacel to accelerate the development of new drugs acting on cell mitosis by using sophisticated, high throughput, rational drug design processes. In addition, the SpurPlus grant will help Cyclacel industrialise the processes that are capable of handling the large amount of data generated by its genomic screening programme.
'What this means is that we can get closer to identifying the key genes in the cancer process much more rapidly, because the same genes that regulate cell division throughout evolution also regulate progression through the cell cycle and monitor DNA damage in flies and in humans,' commented Professor David Glover, chief scientist, Polgen division.
'However, a more convenient experimental system and the absence of gene duplication in fly cells provides a more rapid and powerful way to study genes that go awry in cancer than is possible with human cells. We anticipate that in our collaboration with Cambridge University, the academic lab's deep understanding of this fundamental biological process complements Polgen's high throughput procedures to rapidly and efficiently arrive at validated anticancer drug targets.'