Improved Drug for Prostate and Other Cancers

The long-term goal of this project is to develop an anti-cancer drug based on the prototype compounwould allow widespread use in humans with a variety of cancer types. Clinical studies with suramin iprostate cancer have shown significant response rates through Phase II studies. However, severe toxiobserved that are treatment limiting and the narrow window between active and toxic drug levels precsome cancers or in combination with other anti-cancer agents. We plan to overcome these problems witidentifying derivatives that maintain the anti- cancer activity but have reduced toxicity. Preliminaset of five compounds that have increased potency in growth factor inhibition and prostate tumor celcompounds will be assessed for tumor growth inhibition in vivo with human tumor cell xenografts in mpreliminary assessment of toxicity will be determined in order to evaluate the therapeutic index. Suthis project may lead directly to a new clinical candidate for treatment of prostate and other solid