Funding news as University of Dundee’s CeTPD is part of the Cancer Grand Challenges KOODAC team

We are delighted to share the news that we are part of the Cancer Grand Challenges KOODAC team to develop new drugs for tackling solid tumours in children. The team will be led by Yael Mossé, MD, Professor of Pediatrics in the Cancer Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), and Martin Eilers, Professor of Biochemistry from the Theodor-Boveri-Institute at the University of Würzburg in Germany, and it brings together clinicians, advocates and scientists with expertise in structural biology, chemical biology, paediatric oncology and medicinal chemistry, across ten institutions and five countries to develop transformative new therapies for previously undruggable forms of childhood cancer.

Funded by two of the largest funders of cancer research in the world – Cancer Research UK (CRUK) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in the US – Cancer Grand Challenges will fund overall five teams for five years with sums of up to $25 million each to address some of the most pressing challenges in cancer research and care. For this funding round, 176 global teams last year submitted bold ideas for tackling such challenges, and 12 teams were shortlisted. Our project “Developing a suite of oncoprotein degraders for childhood solid cancers” nicknamed Team KOODAC (acronym for “Knock out oncogenic drivers and cure kids), emerged as one of five teams to receive funding after a year-long rigorous selection process.  To tackle this challenge, our KOODAC team brings together the expertise of researchers from the United States, Austria, France, Germany, and us from the United Kingdom.

KOODAC aims to develop new degrader drugs that breakdown five of the most compelling oncoproteins in children with high-risk oncogene-driven cancers, including neuroblastoma, medulloblastoma, fibrolamellar hepatocellular carcinoma, rhabdomyosarcoma, Ewing sarcoma and other tumours that are driven by these essential oncoproteins. The team is addressing this challenge working together with Nurix Therapeutics, a US-based biopharmaceutical company focused on developing degrader drugs, which will offer a path forward for clinical translation of discoveries made by the team. The team is also supported by a robust international patient advocacy committee that will amplify the voice of childhood cancer communities globally. “We were honoured to be invited and immediately felt a sense of purpose, a strong focus on team science, and realised the unique opportunity and call ahead of us”, said Alessio when interviewed. “Revolutionising paediatric solid tumour treatment demands global collaboration in the face of persisting outdated therapies. We have assembled a team with unrivalled technology and expertise to realise our ambitious goal of driving innovation in targeted paediatric cancer therapeutics. Our vision is to pioneer drugs that will become the new standards of care for children with oncoprotein-driven solid malignancies. We are currently recruiting a senior lead scientist, a structural biologist, a chemical biologist, and a medicinal chemist, who will be based within my research group at CeTPD to work on this project. We encourage spreading the word to anyone who might be interested.”

The team was announced on Wednesday 8^th March at the Cancer Grand Challenges Summit event in London, which Alessio attended. KOODAC is one of two teams funded by the Cancer Grand Challenge to tackle paediatric cancer. KOODAC is funded by Cancer Research UK, Institut National Du Cancer and KiKa (Children Cancer Free Foundation). A joint team photo was taken with those attending the meeting from both teams, and their patient advocates.

Read more about the international KOODAC team here:

https://cancergrandchallenges.org/teams/koodac and https://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2024/03/06/changing-childhood-cancer-treatment-cancer-grand-challenges-koodac/

Read more about the Cancer Grand Challenge KOODAC collaboration in the UoD News article “University of Dundee joins new global fight against cancer“