WHIO: Wright State chemistry researchers awarded more than $400K for cancer-fighting project

Excerpt

Kuppuswamy Arumugam, an assistant professor of chemistry at Wright State, leads a research project aimed at developing more effective cancer therapeutics. (Photos by Erin Pence)

A team of chemistry researchers received a three-year, $462,195 award from the National Institutes of Health to help work on a novel approach to fighting cancers.

Kuppuswamy Arumugam, an assistant professor of chemistry at Wright State University, and Jonathan F. Arambula, an organic chemistry professor at the University of Texas at Austin, are leading a research project aimed at developing more effective cancer therapeutics, according to a release.

“There are some new results and we’re very excited about it,” said Arumugam.

The research project is aimed at developing more effective cancer therapeutics using a combination of synthetic chemistry and biological high throughput screening, read the release. Arumugam’s team is making new chemical compounds with the goal of using them as anti-cancer drugs.

“Combining them together is making an effective hybrid drug,” said Arumugam.

The next step is to test the compound and improve water solubility, which would make it a new drug to be re-studied, read the release. The team also needs to determine whether a receptor needs to be attached in order to target specific cancer cells.

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