Jeffrey Mowat

2007 Research Trainee Award, Junior Graduate Studentship

Studies towards the total synthesis of eleutherobin and designed analogues for cancer therapy|,|

Cancer is the leading cause of death among Canadians. A new class of drugs derived from natural products has emerged in the last decade and shows great promise for treating cancers. Taxol, a drug first isolated from the bark or needles of yew trees, is a member of this class and has been used to treat more than one million patients with advanced cancers. However, recent concerns over negative side effects and patients developing resistance to the drug have prompted further investigation into these compounds.

Eleutherobin, another member of this class of drugs, was first isolated from a rare soft coral off the coast of Western Australia in 1997. Eleutherobin is extremely potent against cancer cells, even those which have developed resistance to taxol treatment, however its development as an anti-cancer drug has been hampered by the extremely limited supply from its natural source. Furthermore, synthetic effortshave yielded only very small amounts of drug. Large amounts of drug are necessary for biological testing, consequently Jeffrey Mowat is investigating the development of concise synthetic routes for the production of this compound. Furthermore, Mowat plans to create synthetic analogues of eleutherobin, compounds that have the same core structure, but contain slight modifications. Mowat will test how changes in these analogues structures affect the potency of the drug. The most effective analogues may hold promise for development as new cancer treatments.

Completed award term, March 2009

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