This summer, three University of North Florida professors were awarded a U.S. patent for a potential cancer-fighting compound, or peptoid, that could stagnate the growth of certain breast, colon and lung cancers.
If approved by the Food and Drug Administration, the compound would be used during the early stages of cancer detection with the goal of stopping the growth and potential spread to other organs and even choke out the cancerous cells.
The team comprises lead researcher Bryan Knuckley, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry chair and professor; Corey Causey, chemistry and biochemistry associate professor; and Fatima Rehman, biology associate lecturer.
“What it is doing is turning off pathways in a way that they feel they are getting starved,” Rehman said.
“And over time, their metabolic pathways are shut down so that they cannot survive anymore, and they eventually die out. So they can’t divide, they can’t grow, they can’t replicate and they eventually die.”
Knuckley began his work in 2012. Early on, he collected results from similar work and saw how it could be applied to this research.
About 2019, Knuckley and his team found a peptoid compound that was similar enough to a cancer protein that the cancer cells would link with it and the peptoid could begin to disarm the cancer.
There was no “eureka” moment when the patented compound was found, he said.
“Oh, is it for real? Let’s go back and double check the structure, make sure the structure is exactly what we thought it would be, make sure the binding was exactly what we thought it should be,” Rehman said of the process of discovery.
“So we would have double-checked every single part of that process. First, repeated it and repeated it again before you would go even any further. Then look at what needs to happen next.”
“So we tested it in my lab, kind of in a test tube, right?” Knuckley said.
“And then when we gave it to Fatima for her lab, where they tested it with the cells themselves. And so really, it’s kind of an independent test to verify that what my lab saw is also what her lab saw.”
Success in a test tube is one thing, but putting the peptoid among many different living cells and seeing if it could isolate and bind with cancer cells was a significant step.
University research doesn’t automatically lead to medical use.
Safety tests, and reproducing results in mice have to be completed before human testing can begin. That process is underway.
In the meantime, a second patent application is being reviewed. The first patent is for the theory and second is for the peptoid compound itself.
Successful research does not only lead to new treatments, it affects the reality all researchers face: funding.
Success begets more state and federal funding. Private donations grow when positive results can be presented at conferences or donor functions.
“This gives us validity for our compound. So let’s go and use this opportunity now to apply for grants or look for money so that we can do more extensive studies and develop it further into an actual drug,” Rehman said.
Research success also serves as a recruiting tool bringing top students from around the country to UNF.
“So in my lab, at least, I have students that are doing independent research experiments in the lab, working with the compounds,” Rehman said.
“They’re the ones doing the nitty-gritty of research, while I’m working with them on the analysis and critical workflow.”
Besides real-life lab experience, depending on their involvement, students can be credited in a published scientific report.
“We’ve all had some brilliant students working on it alongside us, without which, it would not have gotten this far so quickly,” Knuckley said.