NZUMBE INC — Department of Health and Human Services STTR Phase I: DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A hallmark of virtually every cancer is aberrant epig
NZUMBE INC — STTR Phase I award from Department of Health and Human Services.
- Amount
- $225,000
- Agency
- Department of Health and Human Services · National Institutes of Health
- Program / Phase
- STTR · Phase I
- Solicitation
- PA13-235
- NAICS
- —
- Place of performance
- OR
- Period
- —
Description
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A hallmark of virtually every cancer is aberrant epigenetic silencing of vital genes required for a normal cell cycle and genome stability (e.g. MLH1, BRCA1, VHL, p16, etc.). Loss of expression of these tumor suppressorgenes plays a critical role in cancer formation and growth. Thus, targeting this root cause of cancer has significant potential to treat and potentially cure a host of cancers. Indeed, a major initiative i essentially every major pharmaceutical company isto investigate epigenetic cancer therapies targeting the reactivation of these key genes. However, despite its promise, at this time drug-induced gene reactivation does not work therapeutically because reactivation is invariably unstable. One reason for this failure is that current approaches consider silencing as an end point instead of a process, and as a result do not strategically target epigenetic modifications that occur at different times during the silencing process. We believe achieving stabl