Dr. Alexander Beeser's laboratory

"Many cancers occur because of disruption of the ways cells communicate with one another. Of critical importance in this process is a class of proteins called kinases, and misregulation of kinases is one of the primary events in many clinically relevant malignancies. Although protein kinases represent ideal targets for therapeutic inhibition, efforts to target them with small molecules have generally failed to live up to this promise, in part because of their propensity to mediate off-target effects. We are interested in a family of protein kinases known as the p21-activated kinases (Paks) that regulate many important biological processes and have been directly implicated in certain cancers, specifically Neurofibromatosis, a debilitating pediatric cancer for which there is currently no effective therapy. We have identified a class of Pak inhibitors that are both potent and highly specific, and are now studying ways by which they might be utilized to treat cancer."