Kashmiri doctor achieves feat inCancer Drug discovery field  

His research is as fresh as this achievement – a shiftin cancer treatment, precision and efficacy upgraded.In his own words, this scientist from Muqam Shahwali area of Drugmulla Kupwaraexplains what his paper has been able to uncover. 

“We delineated the privileged anticancer chemical scaffolds that are effective againstmultiple chemotherapeutic targets in tumorigenesis and filled one of the importantclinical requisites in this challenging field. This we did when we introduced the noveltactic for cancer drug design and development that will serve as the hopeful approach forhumankind in drug discovery against several targets, and circumvent the multidrugresistance obstacle in the treatment of complex malignancies,” he said. 

Many science news portals have said that the optimization of various chemical groups atspecific locations of the discovered privileged pharmacophores in this study would leadto the improvement in response to cancer chemotherapy by inhibiting GTP driventubulin polymerization process, tumor associated human kinome and hCAIX activity. 

“This research would also help the scientists to tackle the cytotoxicity and targetspecificity issues in discovering the potent antitumor agents to save lives and serve thehuman kind,” Dr Peerzada said. 

The research work was conducted in collaboration with a team of internationallyrecognized scientists from National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, USAand University of Florence, Italy. The scientists who are part of the conducted researchinclude Dr. Ernest Hamel (MD, PhD, USA), Dr. Rouli (PhD, USA), Professor ClaudiuTrandafir Supuran (PhD, Europe) and Professor Amir Azam (PhD, JMI). 

Dr Hameldiscovered the CSA4 antitumor drug along with Professor G. R. Pettit in 1989 and he ispresently the senior investigator at National Cancer Institute, NIH, Maryland USA,where he is mentoring the group of scientists. Professor Supuran is the inventor of SLC0111 antitumor agent, discoverer of eta-carbonic anhydrases and having more than95000 citations. 

He is the most cited scientist in the field of cancer drug discoveryresearch in the world having more than 1700 research papers to his credit and forty yearsof research experience in this field.This research entitled as “Deciphering the key heterocyclic scaffolds in targetingmicrotubules, kinases and carbonic anhydrases for cancer drug development”is publishedinthe high impact medical journal “Pharmacology & Therapeutics”(5 year impact factor11.40). This journal is included in the Index Medicus. 

Dr. Peerzada becomes the first andyoungest researcher to have the publication to his credit in this reputed medical journalfrom the country as the lead author.Dr Peerzada is the principal scientist of this research. 

He is currently working with DrSaurab Verma (Scientist E) as postdoctoral fellow at National Institute of Pathology(ICMR), Safdarjung Hospital New Delhi. He is set to join the Barry Victor Lloyd groupof cancer research at the medical sciences division, University of Oxford, London. 

Theanticancer drug candidates discovered by Dr Peerzada are currently undergoinginvestigations in various laboratories in the USA and Europe. 

He was awarded CSIRSRF fellowship by Government of India while doing doctoral research. He is working ondrug discovery taking into account the hinge region and ATP binding pocket of kinases,zinc bound histidine residues of carbonic anhydrases, and development of antimitoticagents to arrest cell cycle at G2/M phase for cancer treatment. 
He is also working onlead optimizations of lapatinib for improvement in efficacy against aggressive HER2positive metastatic breast cancers.