Certain types of skin cancers and blindness due to age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic retinopathy are likely to be among the first uses for the drug.
The experimental drug has already been shown to be effective on skin cancers, eye disease and arthritis in preclinical models. The next phase in the therapy’s development would be a trial, involving up to 10 people with non-melanoma skin cancers. The tumors would be injected with the drug over an eight-week period.
“This may be a ‘one-size fits all’ therapy, because it targets a master regulator gene called c-Jun which appears to be involved in all of these diseases,” said Professor Levon Khachigian, of the Centre for Vascular Research at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). “Our experimental drug, Dz13, is like a secret agent that finds its target, c-Jun, within the cell and destroys it,” he continued. “It is a specific, pre-programmed ‘molecular assassin’.”