WPI professor awarded $1.7M cancer research funding
Courtesy/WPI
WPI Professor Anita Mattson.
A Worcester Polytechnic Institute chemistry professor has received a $1.7-million award from the National Institutes of Health to develop treatments for persistent cancers.
The award, announced Wednesday, to associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry Anita Mattson will go towards the development of a new class of catalysts to help reliably synthesize organic compounds to treat some cancers resistant to chemotherapy treatments.
The award, known as an R35, is a relatively new award earmarked for promising early-stage investigators.
Mattson’s research focuses on a group of naturally occurring molecules derived from various strains of fungi called chromanones. These molecules have high biological activity and could be a powerful dual-action treatment to cisplatin, a drug found to lose its potency after initial treatments of aggressive cancers.
However, chromanones are very difficult to synthesize, Mattson said, but organic compounds known as silanediols can access and control the molecular structure of chromanones.
With the funding, Mattson hopes to demonstrate silanediols are able to control the synthesis of chromanones, which will allow the building of a new library of chromanones to be tested against various types of cancers, including chemotherapy-resistant cancers, in collaboration with researchers at UMass Medical School.
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