William Roush, of the Florida-based Scripps Research Institute, gave the third yearly lecture of this semester's Regent Beth Fitzsimmons Lecture Series on Thursday.
The current project Roush and his team have spent four years on is intended to be used to treat breast cancer, glioblastoma and melanoma. EMU professor Harriet Lindsay helped organize the event.
“This potential drug is in the very early stages of testing, but in models it appears to kill cancer cells with minimal side effects,” Lindsay said. “It was also found to be active against a broad spectrum of tumors.”
While Roush's new findings have been tested on animals, they have yet to go through human testing or receive FDA approval.
Roush's hour-long lecture went into depth about the genetics, chemistry and biology that goes into the creation and testing of drugs for human consumption. He said the most interesting part for him wasn't simply finding a new drug for a new disease, but to come up with a “new mechanic” for creating the compounds.
“In the academic world, we really should be pushing frontiers of science,” Roush said. “The fun part of doing this type of research is the discoveries you make. The unanticipated, the unexpected discovery. I would call it serendipitous having observations that take the science in a direction that you wouldn't have anticipated earlier.”
Roush did everything with the help of his colleagues in their spare time and with no grants. Now that he has had results, it is up for grant approval for further research. Then, it will go to human testing and FDA approval.
There will be a follow up lecture on Friday, going into more technical detail.
