Project Search

Cladoniamides represent an important new class of anticancer drugs with nanomolar inhibition of tumor cell line growth. However, they are difficult to synthesize as a natural product. Using genomics, metabolic engineering, and chemistry, this project team harnessed cladoniamide biosynthetic enzymes to produce cladoniamides and new derivatives at high levels, for biological testing.

Cladoniamide and derivatives were isolated and synthesized at a much lower cost compared with organic synthesis. All the compounds produced were tested against colon cancer cell lines and prioritized for animal studies. This project laid the groundwork for the future collaborative efforts in anti-cancer drug discovery research, formulation development, testing and commercialization.