3D Structures Added to World's Largest Cancer Drug Database

With the new year comes big news on the cancer treatment front: 3D structures have been added to canSAR, the world’s largest database for cancer drug discovery.
The additions are outlined in a report published in the Nucleic Acid Research journal by Cancer Research UK. They will allow scientists worldwide to design new cancer treatments more effectively.

What is canSAR?

The canSAR database was developed by a team at the Institute of Cancer Research in London. When it was launched in 2013, canSAR contained 1.7 billion experimental results relating to genes, clinical trials and pharmacological data. However, since then it’s gotten larger.
“Our database is constantly growing with information and is the largest of its kind — with more than 140,000 users from over 175 countries,” Dr. Bissan Al-Lazikani, team leader in computational biology at the Institute of Cancer Research, London, and leader of the Cancer Research UK-funded team that developed canSAR, said Monday in a statement.

Similarly, Professor Paul Workman, chief executive of the Institute of Cancer Research, London, and a Cancer Research UK life fellow, highlighted that the “canSAR database is an important part of the overall drive to use Big Data approaches to understand and treat cancer more effectively.”
“canSAR is a massively powerful resource that’s used globally by researchers to gain rapid and easy to use access to a huge wealth of integrated knowledge in biology, chemistry and cancer medicine,” he added.

How do 3D technologies contribute?

Now that 3D structures are included in the canSAR database, researchers will be able to approach cancer treatments from a different angle.
As I4U states, the 3D technology uses artificial intelligence to map the surface of problematic cancer-causing molecules; the idea is that this information will enable the development of drugs that can inhibit these molecules. Furthermore, the technology will help researchers understand communication lines with tumor cells, and perhaps learn new approaches to block them off.
“This latest research has greatly enhanced the power of canSAR to enable scientists to select the best possible targets for future cancer drug discovery and also to help them develop really innovative drugs much more rapidly and effectively than ever before for the benefit of cancer patients worldwide,” Workman said.
Dr. Kat Arney, Cancer Research UK’s science information manager also commented positively on the addition of 3D technology, and said it will speed up crucial advancements in drug discovery. “Finding new treatments for cancer can be a long and expensive process, so anything that cuts times and costs will help to bring the next generation of therapies to patients even sooner,” she said.

Overall, it doesn’t look like there will be any stopping the advancement of the database any time soon. In fact, as Al-Lazikani stated, “we regularly develop new artificial intelligence technologies that help scientists make predictions and design experiments.”
 
Securities Disclosure: I, Vivien Diniz, hold no investment interest in any of the companies mentioned.