Welcome to the Purdue Cancer Center

Drug Design and Discovery Program

This program is focused on central activities required for the development of small organic molecules as cancer chemotherapeutic agents. Members of this program use a wide variety of approaches, including chemical, biochemical, cellular, and animal methods to design and discover drugs. These approaches include (but are not limited to):

  • Natural Product-Based Drug Design and Discovery
    Synthesis of anti-cancer natural products and analogs thereof. Biological studies on their mechanism of action.
  • Biologically-Targeted Drug Design
    Design, synthesis, and biological evaluation of synthetic compounds as potential inhibitors of anti-cancer enzyme targets, and antagonists of anticancer receptors.
  • Screening of Biological Targets for Drug Discovery
    Development and utilization of methods, including systems biology methods, for the high-throughput evaluation of potential anticancer agents.
  • Preclinical Models for Drug Development
    Evaluation of potential chemotherapeutic and chemopreventative agents in cellular and animal cancer models.

Specific examples of activities in this program include: a) development of new synthetic routes to natural products known to function as antitumor or chemopreventative agents; b) mechanistic evaluation of new anticancer natural products; c) design and synthesis of targeted protein kinase inhibitors; d) design and synthesis of inhibitors of post-translational modifications; e) design and synthesis of topoisomerase inhibitors; f) development of systems methods for discovery of novel potential anti-cancer targets; g) studies of potential chemotherapeutic agents in mouse xenograph and other animal models.

Program Members:

Richard F. Borch, MCMP
Mark S. Cushman, MCMP
V. Joe Davisson, MCMP
Philip L. Fuchs, CHEM
Arun K. Ghosh, CHEM; MCMP
Richard A. Gibbs, MCMP, Leader
Mark A. Green, IPPH
Tony Hazbun, MCMP

Deborah W. Knapp, VCS
Mark A. Lipton, CHEM
Michael Lucroy, VCS
Sulma I. Mohammed, VPTH
David J. Waters, VCS