Our very own Chemistry professor, Dr. Zucai Suo, will be teaming up with Biosortia Pharmaceuticals on one of three new oncology research projects. The projects will investigate Biosortia’s unique libraries of consortia microbial compounds for potential drug discovery in pediatric cancer (neuroblastoma), liver cancer (Hepatitis C virus) and an alternative approach to combat tumor growth by stimulating a patient’s immune responses (immuno-oncology).

 

Dr. Suo will be researching natural product inhibitors for treating liver cancer and viral infections.  Liver cancer is the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide, with a major cause if it being Hepatitis C virus (HCV). HCV replicates exclusively in the liver and has chronically infected 170 to 300 million people worldwide.  Dr. Suo’s past as The Jane Coffin Childs memorial Fund Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University Medical School, a member of the research team at Lilly which successfully developed an FDA and EU approved anti-Hepatitis C virus protease inhibitor based drug in collaboration with Vertex Pharmaceuticals, and also his current role as a consultant with Gilead Sciences leave no reason to wonder why he was selected for this noteworthy role. 

 

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