Imagine having access to a drug specifically tailored to your genes — a drug so individually targeted that it could treat a disease without negative side effects.
It sounds like science fiction, but researchers at the South Carolina College of Pharmacy know that it is the future.
The school just received an $11.3 million federal grant for the creation of a new Center for Targeted Therapeutics, a program that will fund research that explores how individuals’ genes respond to pharmaceuticals, the SCCP announced Monday.
“In the past, many of the drugs we gave to people had multiple effects, so they had a very broad effect on the body. You got some desired effects that you wanted from the drug, and then undesirable effects, or ‘side effects’, from drugs. This targeted approach… specifically alters one effect that your body may have relating to your genes,” Randall C. Rowen, interim executive dean of the SCCP, said. “It’s sort of that magic bullet that provides the therapeutic benefit without all the side effects.”
The reception of federal funding for the new Center for Targeted Therapeutics marks one of the largest competitive awards in University of South Carolina history, according to an SCCP press release.
The five-year grant was issued through the National Institutes of Health’s Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) program. It is the SCCP’s second COBRE grant; the college received $10.5 million from the program in 2011 for the creation of the Center for Oxidants, Redox Balance and Stress Signaling, which is housed at MUSC.
The new CTT will be led by USC pharmacy professor Igor Roninson, who holds the SmartState endowed chair in Translational Cancer Therapeutics.
In his past medical research, Roninson has focused primarily on cancer treatment, Rowen said. “He has come up with novel compounds that have different mechanisms of action against cancer, and, interestingly, from a very targeted approach, he’s having some impact on some cancers that were not very treatable in the past, but he also has limited the side effects associated with it.”
Under Roninson’s leadership, the CTT’s initial projects will involve researching treatments for cancer and neurological diseases, according to an SCCP press release.
In addition to funding new projects, the COBRE grant will provide money to hire new scientists with a wide range of expertise. The CTT aims to hire at least six new junior faculty members.
Through the addition of knowledgeable faculty and money for projects, the COBRE grant may enable researchers at the SCCP to discover life-saving breakthroughs.
According to an SCCP press release, “work at CTT could lead to patents for new pharmaceuticals developed at the center, clinical trials, corporate partnerships and eventually to revolutionary new drugs.”
The grant has also enhanced the College of Pharmacy’s excellent reputation, bringing the school to the center of international efforts to revolutionize medical technology.
“It adds to the [status of the] University of South Carolina as a research center that’s on the cutting edge of medical research…this is another one of those major steps that we’ve taken to becoming a top-notch research institution,” Rowen said.
Because the CTT will be housed at the College of Pharmacy, the grant also allows University of South Carolina students interested in targeted therapeutics the opportunity to participate in some of the most significant research endeavors in the nation.
“Dr. Roninson is here at the university, and students have the ability to learn from him directly. There are students who work in his lab, and he speaks on the campus, he teaches,” Rowen said. “So there’s a tremendous educational opportunity for the students here in addition to the national recognition that it will bring to the university.”