Advanced Cancer Therapeutics licenses choline kinase blockers

Privately-held US firm Advanced Cancer Therapeutics has signed an exclusive license to develop and commercialize small-molecule  inhibitors of choline kinase, an enzyme discovered to be required for  the survival of tumors by scientists at the University of Louisville  James Graham Brown Cancer Center. Researchers from the center recently  found that removal of the gene for choline kinase caused a block in  signals required for the survival of tumors. Using computing  technologies, they then screened millions of chemicals and identified  one that turned off the enzyme. This lead chemical inhibitor of choline  kinase caused the death of lung tumors in mice, which could help ACT  develop a new class of chemotherapies.