Professor Deborah Tweddle, Newcastle Biomedicine, Newcastle University Wednesday 8th October, 4.00 p.m., Jennison Lecture Theatre
Neuroblastoma is one of the most difficult childhood cancers to cure. Around 50% of all cases have high risk disease (metastatic disease in a child over the age of 18 months or MYCN amplified disease) and < 50% of these will be long term survivors. New targeted, less toxic treatments and a better understanding of drug resistance are needed before these survival figures can significantly improve.
One targeted treatment which is currently undergoing clinical development are MDM2/p53 inhibitors which target the interaction between the p53 tumour suppressor protein and its negative regulator MDM2 so increasing p53 levels and leading to tumour cell death.
We have been investigating the role of p53 in neuroblastoma for many years and have reported predominantly upstream defects of the p53 pathway making MDM2/p53 inhibitors a suitable potential novel therapy for neuroblastoma. In this talk I will describe our pre-clinical studies with novel MDM2 inhibitors in neuroblastoma in addition to the well-studied Nutlin compounds and the potential clinical uses of these agents.