ANALYTICAL & LABORATORY EQUIPMENT
LEFT: Spring Bank is setting out to harness the power of nucleic acid technology
RIGHT: New drugs being developed have huge potential for treating chronic diseases
Novel small molecule drug discovery platform harnesses immune system to defeat cancers, viral infections and infl ammatory diseases, explains R.P. “Kris” Iyer
M
ore than 300 million patients worldwide are infected with the hepatitis B virus (HBV). Each year, more than a million of these
patients die from the virus, which is also a major cause of liver cancer and cirrhosis. Worldwide, cancer claims the lives of millions more. Chronic HBV, cancer and a variety of infl ammatory diseases are caused by immune dysfunction at the cellular level. Now, the power of nucleic acid technology is being harnessed to design small molecule nucleic acid hybrid (SMNH) drugs that harness the patient’s own immune system to defeat these cancers and cure viral diseases at global scales.
SMALL MOLECULE NUCLEIC ACID HYBRID CHEMISTRY Nucleotides are building blocks of DNA and RNA (collectively called nucleic acids) that, along with proteins, constitute the fundamental operational components of
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all cells. Normal cellular function depends on a complex, interconnected network of biochemical processes that rely entirely on highly precise recognition, and very specifi c interaction among nucleotides, proteins and nucleic acids. Diseases occur when cellular function goes awry due to aberrant cellular processes. Drugs used to treat many diseases are designed to restore normal cellular processes in a diseased cell. To achieve this, a drug must have properties that enable it to mimic the recognition and interaction between cellular components that would help jump-start and restore normal cell function. Based on nucleic acid structure, uniquely designed SMNH drugs are being developed that are endowed with recognition and interaction properties closely mimicking what nature employs in its normal cellular function. T ese SMNH compounds are designed with properties that enable them to recognise and interact with nucleic
THE POWER OF NUCLEIC ACID TECH
acids and proteins much like natural nucleotides and nucleic acids and proteins do in cells. Furthermore, chemical modifi cations to these SMNH compounds give them drug-like properties, enabling them to be formulated for use as tablets/ capsules, injections or other dosage forms. T us, SMNH compounds have several advantages: they have novel mechanisms of action, including induction of the innate immune response; they can be administered by multiple routes of delivery, including oral administration; and they can target a broad range of diseases, including viral, oncological and infl ammatory diseases. For example, Spring Bank is developing SMNH compounds focusing on diseases that cause immune system dysfunction in microbial infections, cancer and infl ammatory disease. T e SMNH compounds are designed to restore the function of the immune system for
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