zum Hauptinhalt wechseln zum Hauptmenü wechseln zum Fußbereich wechseln Universität Bielefeld Play Search
  • Press re­lease

    © Uni­ver­sität Biele­feld

Press re­lease

Zum Haupt­in­halt der Sek­tion wech­seln

Nr. 142/2019 - 15.01.2020

Con­tact

Prof. Dr. Nor­bert Se­wald

Tele­fon Sekr.
+49 521 106-​6963
Raum
UHG F2-​141

De­vel­op­ing drugs that ac­ti­vate de­fences against tu­mours

Biele­feld Uni­ver­sity to co­or­di­nate Eu­ro­pean re­search net­work

Doc­tors treat tu­mours mainly through surgery, ra­dio­ther­apy, and chemother­apy. Over the next four years, a new project of Biele­feld Uni­ver­sity and 14 Eu­ro­pean part­ners will be study­ing tar­geted can­cer treat­ments. The idea is that spe­cial mol­e­cules will track tu­mour cells in the body and then de­liver an ac­tive agent that en­sures that the can­cer­ous cells are re­moved. Fif­teen doc­toral stu­dents will be work­ing to­gether in the "Mag­icbul­let::Re­loaded" re­search net­work. The project is a co­op­er­a­tion be­tween uni­ver­si­ties, re­search in­sti­tutes, and in­dus­try. It is being funded by the Eu­ro­pean Union with a bud­get of around four mil­lion euro.

In this project, the sci­en­tists are con­tin­u­ing the work of the "Mag­icbul­let" net­work. Be­tween 2015 and 2018, this net­work de­vel­oped the sci­en­tific basis for tar­geted can­cer drugs that use pep­tide mol­e­cules to trans­port the anti-​tumour agent.

"What we want to do in the new net­work is to take this re­search fur­ther," says Pro­fes­sor Dr Nor­bert Se­wald from Biele­feld Uni­ver­sity's Fac­ulty of Chem­istry and the Cen­ter for Biotech­nol­ogy (CeBiTec). Fol­low­ing on from "Mag­icbul­let", the chemist is now co­or­di­nat­ing "Mag­icbul­let::Re­loaded". In fu­ture, the re­searchers will not just be work­ing ex­clu­sively on pep­tide con­ju­gates (tiny pro­tein mol­e­cules) and anti-​tumour agents. "In ad­di­tion to the pep­tides, we shall be di­rect­ing our re­search to­wards fur­ther small mol­e­cules that can be com­bined with ac­tive agents and tar­get tu­mour cells," ac­cord­ing to Se­wald. The sec­ond focus of the new project will be on the ac­tive agents: "This time, we are con­cen­trat­ing on drugs that can en­able the im­mune sys­tem to rec­og­nize tu­mours as harm­ful and re­move them."

"With this kind of drug, we can po­ten­tially treat tu­mours less ag­gres­sively than with, for ex­am­ple, con­ven­tional chemother­apy," says Dr Mar­cel Frese, a mem­ber of Se­wald's re­search team. Frese is work­ing on im­ple­ment­ing Mag­icbul­let::Re­loaded. "Chemother­apy gen­er­ally ap­plies ac­tive agents that dam­age cells. They should poi­son the can­cer cells. How­ever, the draw­back is that they also dam­age healthy cells."

The new project links to­gether both basic and ap­plied re­search. "At the uni­ver­si­ties and re­search in­sti­tutes in the project, we are de­vel­op­ing pro­to­types for fu­ture tu­mour ther­a­pies," says Nor­bert Se­wald. "Our in­dus­trial part­ners will then test these pro­to­types in pre-​clinical stud­ies. The first re­sults gained from Mag­icbul­let are al­ready very promis­ing. How­ever, we still have a very long way to go be­fore clin­i­cal treat­ment can pro­ceed, and we can­not ex­pect that our con­ju­gates will be on the mar­ket in the next few years."

Mag­icbul­let::Re­loaded brings to­gether re­searchers from or­ganic and med­ical chem­istry, tu­mour bi­ol­ogy, and phar­ma­col­ogy. In the new con­sor­tium, Biele­feld Uni­ver­sity is co­op­er­at­ing with part­ners from six coun­tries. Eight uni­ver­si­ties are par­tic­i­pat­ing: the Eötvös Loránd Uni­ver­sity (ELTE) in Bu­dapest (Hun­gary), die ETH Zurich (Switzer­land), New­cas­tle Uni­ver­sity (Great Britain), the Tech­nis­che Uni­ver­sität Darm­stadt (Ger­many), the Uni­ver­sity of Helsinki (Fin­land), the Uni­ver­sity of In­sub­ria (Italy), the Uni­ver­sity of Milan (Italy), and the Uni­ver­sity of Cologne (Ger­many). Two re­search in­sti­tutes are par­tic­i­pat­ing: the Fraun­hofer In­sti­tute for Tox­i­col­ogy and Ex­per­i­men­tal Med­i­cine in Hanover (Ger­many), and the Na­tional In­sti­tute for Can­cer Re­search OOI (Hun­gary). Four phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies are also in­volved: Exiris (Italy), Hei­del­berg Pharma (Ger­many), Philochem AG (Switzer­land), and Takis Biotech (Italy). The net­work is re­ceiv­ing ad­di­tional sup­port from the as­so­ci­ated in­dus­try part­ners Bayer (Ger­many), Ital­far­maco (Italy), and Kineto Lab (Hun­gary).

The EU Re­search Frame­work Pro­gramme is fund­ing Mag­icbul­let::Re­loaded as a Marie Sklodowska Eu­ro­pean Train­ing Net­work, ID: 861316. The goal of such train­ing net­works is to give struc­tured train­ing to out­stand­ing doc­toral stu­dents within the frame­work of ex­cel­lent re­search projects. The name "Mag­icbul­let" comes from the Nobel Prize Win­ner Paul Ehrlich (1854-​1915). He first sug­gested the con­cept of tar­geted agents that he also called "magic bul­lets".

Fur­ther in­for­ma­tion:

Web­site of the new re­search net­work
research_tv-​clip on the prior project "Mag­icbul­let"

Zum Seitenanfang

Datenschutzeinstellung

Diese Webseite verwendet Cookies und ähnliche Technologien. Einige davon sind essentiell, um die Funktionalität der Website zu gewährleisten, während andere uns helfen, die Website und Ihre Erfahrung zu verbessern. Falls Sie zustimmen, verwenden wir Cookies und Daten auch, um Ihre Interaktionen mit unserer Webseite zu messen. Sie können Ihre Einwilligung jederzeit unter Datenschutzerklärung einsehen und mit der Wirkung für die Zukunft widerrufen. Auf der Seite finden Sie auch zusätzliche Informationen zu den verwendeten Cookies und Technologien.