3-Year Grant Examining the Importance of the Spliceosome in Melanoma Immunogenicity

 

Dmitriy Minond, PhD., principal investigator (PI) from College of Pharmacy and Rumbaugh Goodwin Institute for Cancer Research was recently awarded a three-year $573K Florida Department of Health Bankhead-Coley Cancer Research Program Discovery Science grant titled “Spliceosomal modulation for regulation of melanoma immunogenicity.” This grant will support three-year study to determine the effect of spliceosomal modulation on immune pathway signaling which can be beneficial for melanoma patients.

About the funded project

According to estimates of the National Cancer Institute, there are currently over 900,000 people living with melanoma in the US and the American Cancer Society estimates each year melanoma affects over 76,000 people and causes about 10,000 deaths in the US alone. Although there are multiple approved therapies of melanoma, it is known to acquire resistance to most of them. A number of currently used melanoma treatments also result in toxicity for healthy cells. Moreover, the overall survival of patients suffering from late-stage metastatic melanoma is only about 3 years. Hence, there is a need for new approaches and targets for melanoma drug discovery that will result in higher survival rate and/or offer longer periods of progression free survival (PFS).

Preliminary data show that pharmacological and genomic modulation of spliceosome resulted in changes in expression of immune pathways known to affect patient survival, which provides a rationale for Dr. Minond’s proposed studies. Based on these considerations, Dr. Minond and collaborators hypothesized an importance of the spliceosome in melanoma immunogenicity. To test this hypothesis, researchers in Dr. Minond’s lab will conduct assays to evaluate two outcomes of using these compounds. First, they will determine effect of modulation on immune pathways expression in vitro; and then they will also study effect of H1/H2 modulation on immune pathways expression in animal models (in vivo).

Dr. Minond’s research with melanoma has already shown significant therapeutic potential. Therefore, NSU took steps to protect this intellectual property and Dr. Minond now holds a patent for melanoma treatment.  Overall, these proof-of-principle studies supported by this grant award will provide further evidence of role of spliceosome in melanoma immunogenicity and will form a basis for additional studies to assess its potential for a therapy for melanoma that will demonstrate better efficiency against malignant cells and lower probability of serious adverse events on normal cells.

 

Also, see Spotlight on a Researcher – Dr. Dmitriy Minond