Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) Professor Varda Shoshan-Barmatz has been awarded a three-year, $600,000 grant from the U.S. Leukemia & Lymphoma Society to develop target-specific, anti-cancer drugs.
Professor Shoshan-Barmatz, the Hyman Kreitman Chair in Bioenergetics at BGU, has developed a peptide that targets and kills cancer cells while sparing normal cells. The drugs she will be developing target B-CLL (B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia), one of the most common and incurable hematological malignancies.
"Conventional chemotherapy is limited by its lack of specificity, multi-drug resistance of tumor cells, and toxicity to normal cells," says Shoshan-Barmatz. "The benefits to be gained by this new drug are enormous. These therapeutic peptides have a great potential as anti-cancer agents due to their target specificity and potential for reduced side-effects."
Professor Varda Shoshan-Barmatz is also the director of the BGU National Institute for Biotechnology in the Negev.
Only 10 percent of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society grants have been awarded outside of the United States, and about one-third of the non-U.S. grants are awarded to Canada.
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