CiQUS researchers describe on ChemBioChem a new prodrug strategy for controlling in vivo cytotoxicity.

The journal ChemBioChem has selected as Inside Cover (link is external)a research (link is external) led by CIQUS Professors Eugenio Vázquez and Jose L. Mascareñas. This research has had the collaboration of Professor Laura Sanchez-Piñón (Department of Genetics, USC), as well as the predoctoral researchers Cristina Pena, Mateo I. Sánchez and the postdoctoral Jorge Guerra-Varela.

One of the biggest challenges in the development of chemotherapeutic agents is to obtain highly selective species that selectively attack tumoral cells while showing low cytotoxicity against normal cells. With that aim in mind we propose a new strategy consisting on modifying these bioactive molecules with designed appendages that block their internalization and reduce their activity.

These deactivating units are connected to through a photolabile linker, so that controlled irradiation of these species allows us to release the bioactive molecules in a controlled way.