18 Feb 2025
The BMC's Core Facility Proteomics and the biotechnology company Origenis have received research funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
Axel Imhof and his team are playing a key role in the CDKspot research project, which is funded by the BMBF as part of the KMU-innovativ: Biomedicine funding initiative.
The aim of the project is to develop new cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) inhibitors that can be used as broadly applicable therapeutics against cancer and viral infections. The expertise of the BMC Core Facility Proteomics in the measurement and analysis of large phosphoproteomes will play a key role in this project.
One focus of the project is to target the central nervous system (CNS), as the brain is often a reservoir for metastases, viruses and chronic inflammation. However, many conventional drugs are unable to cross the blood-brain barrier and therefore have no effect in the CNS. The CDK inhibitors developed in this project are designed to overcome this barrier and thus offer a new therapeutic option for primary brain tumours and tumours with a high propensity to metastasise to the brain.
Specifically, the project will investigate three promising inhibitors of CDKs that have been poorly understood to date. Together with certain proteins (cyclins), these enzymes control the cell cycle and are therefore potential targets for new therapies against cancer and viruses. The project will comprehensively characterise and validate these CDK targets and drug candidates both in vitro and in vivo. The aim is to prove the efficacy of the candidates in the preclinical phase and to make them available for further development.
More information: KMUi-Biomedizin-4 (in German)