Cancer Drug Design and Development Group

Cancer currently accounts for approximately 13% of global mortality, with colon and breast cancer two of the major causes of cancer-related deaths.

Drawing on expertise into treating breast, colorectal and ovarian cancer, CD³, a cross-College small molecule anti-cancer drug discovery group was created, which is developing a pipeline of anti-cancer agents to tackle this clear clinical need.

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Following significant funding from Cancer Research UK, lead researchers Professor R. Charles Coombes FMedSci and Professor Anthony G. M. Barrett FRS FMedSci formed the group, which utilises key strengths at Imperial College, including synthetic and medicinal chemistry, protein crystallography/structural biology, pharmacology and imaging, epigenetics and pharmocodynamics, molecular pathology, cancer cell biology and phase 1 new drug development. This group spans the Faculties of Natural Sciences and Medicine, and the projects are managed by Dr Brian Slafer and Dr Matt Fuchter. The group works in partnership with the DDC to maximise drug discovery efforts at Imperial College. It currently has numerous cancer targets in drug discovery and development, with many of them at the hit identification and/or optimisation stage. The portfolio also contains more mature projects, where several lead compounds are under preclinical evaluation.

For more information regarding CD³, contact Dr Matt Fuchter