Head of R&D Aptadel Therapeutics, Barcelona, Spain

Project: “Anti-metastatic RNA aptamers for the treatment of EphA2-positive cancers”

Background:
Metastasis is the primary cause of mortality in cancer. One driver of metastatsis is the receptor tyrosine kinase EphA2. Its overexpression is linked to increased metastasis and poor prognosis. Targeting EphA2 or downstream signalling is thus a promising strategy towards metastasis prevention.
The company Adrian is working for is a pre-clinical stage drug development company, which focus on RNA-based treatments for paediatric cancers. RNA aptamers can bind target molecules with high specificity, like antibodies, and can be used to deliver drugs into cancer cells.

canSERV services:
Aptadel Therapeutics developed an EphA2 targeting RNA-aptamer with anti-metastatic activity. To characterise the EphA2-aptamer interaction 5 canSERV services were used: protein production and X-ray crystallography, biophysical analyses, RNA sequencing and phosopho-proteomics.

Societal and Patients Impact:
Understanding the trageting properties and downstream effects of the RNA-aptamer is crucial for clinical application. The project will dribe development of antimetastatic treatments that can increase life quality and expectancy of cancer patients.