A team led by Dr Gabri van der Pluijm from Netherlands Leiden University Medical Centre has received $150,000 Uro-Oncology Grant from the Astellas European Foundation.
The grant will be used to study ‘The Development of a Novel Small Molecule EMT Inhibitor for Clinical Use in Human Bladder Cancer’.
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Dr van der Pluijm said: "We are delighted that the Astellas European Foundation is offering the opportunity to determine the validity of our approach in clinically relevant models of bladder cancer.
"Establishing a potential anti-tumour response of our lead compound will pave the way towards the initiation of Phase I clinical trials."
The project intends to assess the potential initiation of a Phase I study for a novel compound to treat bladder cancer.
Leiden University’s research team has selected a novel compound that blocks the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), after screening around 35,000 compounds. The EMT process is said to be an important step in the development of bladder cancer.
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By GlobalDataAstellas European Foundation trustee and Astellas Pharma EMEA medical affairs and health economics head Dr Ayad Abdulahad said: "The standard of entries this year was very high and covered a broad range of topics across urological oncology.
"The foundation would like to thank all of those who submitted proposals as we received a total of 60 entries from research institutions and hospitals from Europe and also from South Africa."
The foundation provides annual grants of $150,000 for uro-oncology, functional urology and uro-gynaecology, and transplantation.
Image: Dr Gabri van der Pluijm and his team secured $150,000 grant. Photo: courtesy of Astellas European Foundation.
