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Researchers at the University of Arizona Cancer Center have discovered a new class of iron-targeting compounds that can inhibit the growth of cancer cells. This discovery may lead to the development of broad-spectrum anticancer drugs. Iron plays a critical role in tumor progression, and cancer cells have a higher demand for it compared to normal cells. The researchers have been working with Tech Launch Arizona to license this technology for commercialization.
Researchers at the University of Arizona Cancer Center discovered a new class of iron-targeting compounds that hamper the proliferation of cultured malignant cells in a laboratory setting. The results of the study were published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Cancer cells are what we call ‘addicted’ to iron, and so we are making compounds that are able to interfere with the availability of iron in cancer cells.”
Elisa Tomat, PhD, professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the UArizona College of Science and member of the UArizona Cancer Center
The discovery could lead to the development of broad-spectrum, anticancer drugs that target iron metabolism.
The team has been working with Tech Launch Arizona, the university’s commercialization arm, with the goal of licensing the technology to a company that will move it into the marketplace. A patent application is pending.
Iron is the most abundant transition metal in the human body and, according to Tomat, plays a crucial role in tumor progression and metastasis. Cancer cells rely on several iron-dependent processes to sustain their rapid proliferation rates and therefore have a higher demand for this element compared with normal cells.
Tomat said the research team’s challenge was capturing iron within malignant cells yet keeping it available to the rest of the body. To do so, they targeted intracellular iron with compounds that are activated only after cellular uptake.
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“As chemists, we can design and synthesize molecules that are able to bind iron