Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is one of the most lethal cancers worldwide. Sex-determining region Y-box protein 9 (SOX9) is upregulated in the majority of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma cases. It is hypothesized that the increased expression of pancreatic developmental factor SOX9 is necessary for the formation and maintenance of tumor phenotypes in pancreatic cancer cells.

Both ganglioside GD2-specific immunotherapy and antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), as a class of targeted drugs, have demonstrated clinical success as solid tumor therapies in recent years, yet practically no research has been carried out on ADCs directed to ganglioside GD2. In a new study, scientists from the Department of immunology at IBCh RAS in collaboration with colleagues from other Russian institutes for the first time show that clinically relevant anti-GD2 antibody-drug conjugates manifest potent and highly selective cytotoxicity in a wide panel of cell lines with varying GD2 expression and strongly inhibit tumor growth in mouse models of GD2-positive solid cancer.

Scientists from the Laboratory of biosynthesis of physiologically active compounds and Laboratory of biopharmaceutical technologies (IBCH RAS) and Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences synthesized a new series of flexible 5′-norcarbocyclic aza/deaza-purine nucleoside analogs and evaluated as potential inhibitors of E. coli purine nucleoside phosphorylase.