Artelo Biosciences announced the National Cancer Institute (NCI) has awarded Stony Brook University a $4.2 million grant to advance the development of its fatty acid binding protein 5 (FABP5) inhibitor platform. This platform is under exclusive license to Artelo as a potential breakthrough cancer treatment. The five-year grant is intended to support research at Stony Brook University’s Institute of Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery (ICB&DD), in collaboration with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Artelo Biosciences.
FABP5 is an intracellular protein that serves as a carrier for lipids including endocannabinoids and fatty acids. Inhibition of FABP5 is believed to suppress the growth and migration of cancers, including breast and prostate cancers. The original work of Dr. Iwao Ojima and Dr. Martin Kaczocha at ICB&DD and collaboration with Dr. Lloyd Trotman at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, led to a paper in The Prostate that showed novel FABP5 inhibitors developed by the ICB&DD team exhibited significant cytotoxicity against highly drug-resistant metastatic prostate cancer cells. FABP5 also enhanced the antitumor effects of taxane drugs in animal models.
Taxanes, such as docetaxel or cabazitaxel are commonly used to treat metastatic prostate cancer. However, tumors often build up resistance to such drugs, and patients frequently experience adverse events that result in their inability to complete treatment. FABP5 inhibitors combined with docetaxel or cabazitaxel produce synergistic cytotoxicity in numerous prostate cancer cell lines in vitro. The ability of these drugs to synergize could lead to new combination therapies with enhanced tumor‐suppressive efficacy, thereby treating advanced diseases more effectively and minimizing adverse effects.
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“In our research, neither docetaxel or cabazitaxel alone was able to eradicate prostate cancer cells in vitro, while combinations of these taxanes with FABP5 inhibitors resulted in complete prostate cell death with synergism at very low concentrations of taxanes,” said Dr. Ojima, leader of this project.
“Modulating lipid signaling has the potential to be the next revolution in cancer therapeutics,” said Gregory D. Gorgas, Artelo Bioscience’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “We believe this grant is significant validation of our platform and supports the next steps in our collaborative efforts to develop FABP5 inhibitors as potential treatments for various cancers, as well other possible applications including inflammation and pain. We truly value our collaboration with Stony Brook University and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and believe this grant further illustrates our team’s success in rapidly advancing this program from an initial concept.”
Under the grant, the research team will develop and identify the preferred FABP5 inhibitors for potency and selectivity and assess the efficacy of the selected drug candidates in preclinical models, both as single agents and in combination with FDA-approved drugs.