UIC researchers report first-in-class kinase inhibitor for leukemia
UIC Chemistry faculty have just published a paper in Nature Chemical Biology. The paper describes the first-in-class kinase inhibitor for the most common type of leukemia called acute myeloid leukemia (AML). This novel inhibitor is not only the most potent and specific AML inhibitor known to date but also the first inhibitor refractory to drug resistance that poses the biggest challenge in cancer drug development. The work results from multi-institution international collaboration among UIC chemists (Wonhwa Cho, Vladimir Gevorgyan (now at UT Dallas), Stephanie Cologna), UIC clinical investigators (Irum Khan, Nadim Mahud), a UIUC computational scientist (Emad Tajkhorshid), and an immunologist from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. UIC researchers, Ashutosh Sharma and Indira Singaram, are co-first authors for the paper.