KOODAC – Knocking Out Oncogenic Drivers And Curing Childhood Cancer

The KOODAC team was established in 2024 as part of Cancer Grand Challenges. We are a multidisciplinary, international team focussed on the development of degrader drugs for childhood cancers, bringing together scientists, clinicians and patient advocates with a wealth of expertise in childhood cancers and drug discovery. We investigate five oncoproteins known to drive high-risk paediatric cancers that currently have no safe, effective treatments. Degrader drugs offer a new opportunity to target these oncoproteins with improved potency and selectivity. In Dundee, developing new PROTAC degraders for these targets requires solving X-ray crystal structures for rational design, establishing plate-based synthetic chemistry methods, developing biophysical and biochemical methods to assess PROTAC binding and working closely with our collaborators with the aim of delivering first-in-child phase 1 clinical studies for the treatment of cancer.