(340a) Collaborative Research Focused on the Discovery and Development of Vascular Disrupting Agents (Vdas) for the Treatment of Cancer

An exciting and relatively new chemotherapeutic approach to cancer treatment centers on a group of small-molecule inhibitors of tubulin assembly known as vascular disrupting agents (VDAs). These molecules are able to selectively damage the vasculature feeding tumors resulting in starvation of necessary nutrients and depletion of required oxygen. These compounds appear to function by at least two primary biological mechanisms of action involving interference in certain cell signaling pathways as well as induction of morphology changes in the endothelial cells lining the neovasculature in the tumor microenvironment. In addition to cancer, VDAs have application in the field of ophthalmology for the treatment of diseases of the eye such as myopic macular degeneration. Details regarding the development of VDAs in relation to a highly functional, long-standing research collaboration between Baylor University and a biopharmaceutical company will be presented.