Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SYNTRAIN (Targeting SYNthetic lethal interactions for new cancer treatments TRAINing network)
Período documentado: 2018-09-01 hasta 2020-11-30
SYNTRAIN offered and carried out a comprehensive cross-European training program for 15 ESRs, which included intersectoral involvement with secondments to academic laboratories and companies. In spite of COVID-19 challenges, all training events were executed and fellows advanced towards their PhD degrees. The project has also been highly successful at the scientific level. Multiple publications are published and many more are under preparation to disseminate the important findings. Briefly, SYNTRAIN research has led to the identification of new druggable targets and pathways. These targets have been carefully investigated to uncover their potential as drug targets. Furthermore, compound discovery and development has also been an important part of SYNTRAIN leading to patents and patent submissions to exploit our discoveries. We expect to harvest the fruits of the hard collaborative work in the coming years as the projects continue in the network laboratories.
Our network progressed very well in the first period scientifically, and has now advanced further through the final period with excellent outcomes and results. The following section describes the three research work packages and their outcomes. The first focused on identification of novel synthetic lethal interactions with DNA replication stress to identify proteins with potential to be relevant targets for cancer therapy. 8 tasks were outlined in this work package, all tasks are well completed. The second research work package aimed to obtain mechanistic insights regarding the biological roles of genes involved in synthetic lethal interactions with homologous recombination repair deficiencies and/or DNA replication stress. This work package entailed 13 tasks, all have seen remarkable progress. Finally, the last research work package aimed at identifying and testing chemical compounds with activity against biological targets involved in synthetic lethal interactions with homologous recombination repair deficiencies and/or DNA replication stress. There were 8 tasks, and compound screens were carried out with promising leads being established, also for tasks connected with projects advancing from the second work package. At this stage 17 publications have been accepted and published on fellow projects, and additional manuscripts are in revision and expected to be published in 2021 and 2022. Furthermore the consortium members have so far submitted two patent applications, of which one has been granted.