By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter,
Kansas City: Dr. Inamul Haque, an assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Kansas Medical Center, USA and an alumnus of Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi has received a Basic Research Development Award of $35,000 for research on kidney cancer.
The group of Dr. Inamul Haque and others have recently characterized Englerin A (Eng A), a molecule of herb (Phyllanthus engleri) extracts and found that this molecule has anticancer properties in kidney cancer.
Dr. Inamul Haque
Dr. Haque, who earned a doctoral degree from Jamia Millia Islamia told TwoCircles.net in an Email, “We are interested to examine whether Eng A is able to enhance the efficacy of Sorafenib and help in overcoming the limitations of this approved drug.”
Kidney cancer accounts for 2% to 3% of cancers worldwide and the rate has increased 2% per year in the United States for the last several decades. Although the 5-year survival rate is 96% for patients with stage I, it is only 23% for those with advanced disease.
Unfortunately, current therapeutic options are extremely limited and disappointing. In the last seven years, at least 6 new drugs including Sorafenib have been approved for the treatment of this cancer and many more are in clinical trials. Sorafenib, sunitinib, pazopanib and bevacizumab target the VEGF pathway, and temsirolimus and everolimus inhibit the mTOR pathway. With an ever-increasing number of the treatment options, this cancer becomes resistant to all approaches. Therefore, effective therapy for this deadly disease is urgently needed.
Preliminary studies of Dr Haque found Eng A inhibits angiogenesis (new blood vessel formation). With this in mind Dr. Haque hypothesized that combination therapy of Eng A and angiogenic inhibitors may overcome the limitations of angiogenic inhibitors.
Dr. Haque received the Basic Research Development Award from the University of Kansas Medical Center for this research. The university has provided $35,000 for the research work and the funding is renewable if the results are found to be successful.
The team of Dr Haque will first determine the potential impact of Eng A on the growth and apoptosis of different renal cancer cell lines alone or in combination of Sorafenib. They will then evaluate the impact of Eng A alone or in combination of Sorafenib on cell cycle regulator proteins and cell-fate (i.e., apoptosis) regulatory proteins. Third, they will determine the effect of Eng A on different angiogenic factors-induced angiogenesis under tissue culture conditions. Finally, they will test their working hypothesis that combined Sorafenib/Eng A treatment may show greater inhibition of tumor growth, tumor angiogenesis and may overcome escape mechanism and drug resistance seen with single Sorafenib treatment.
Dr. Haque added in his mail to TCN, “The successful completion of these studies may open new avenues for an in depth bench-to-bedside research in order to identify potential novel therapeutic strategies for the treatment of kidney cancer.”
A native of Supaul Bazaar, Biraul in the Darbhanga district of Bihar, Dr. Haque, passed matriculation from Onkar High school, Biraul in 1988. He completed his intermediate of science from C. M. Science College, Darbhanga and then moved to Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi and studied there for about 14 years (Bachelor, Masters, B.Ed and PhD).
After earning his PhD from JMI, under the supervision of Professor Faizan Ahmad, went to the USA in 2006 for postdoctoral training at University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, Kansas, USA. Later, he was promoted to Assistant Professor in the same university. For the last about ten years, he had been involved in the area of new drug discovery and development of new therapies to treat breast, pancreatic and kidney cancer.
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