New Zealand Delegation Visited GIBH

On the 24th and 25th of April 2012, Prof Peter Shepherd, Dr Adam Patterson and Dr Jeff Smaill from the University of Auckland visited GIBH.

Prof Shepherd’s research is in the area of signal transduction with a particular focus on PI 3-kinase and Wnt signaling pathways. The diseases of his current focus include type-2 diabetes, cancer and schizophrenia as defects in signal transduction are a feature of all these diseases. More recently his work has focused on developing PI 3-kinase inhibitors as anticancer drugs. He is also a co-founder of Pathway Therapeutics, which has drugs in clinical trials in the USA.

Dr Patterson’s current research is on the development of the hypoxia-selective cytotoxin PR-104; Discovery and development of hypoxia-selective multikinase inhibitors (HSMKI); Identification of human oxidoreductases for prodrug metabolism; Identification of bacterial nitroreductases for prodrug metabolism; Development of Gene-Directed Enzyme Prodrug Therapy (GDEPT); Armed oncolytic virotherapy (VDEPT) and Clostridia delivered enzyme-prodrug therapy (CDEPT).

Dr Smaill has been heavily involved in commercial drug development programs with both University start-up and large pharmaceutical companies. His research has is on the development of irreversible pan-erbB inhibitors. Most recently, in collaboration with Dr Patterson, he has discovered PR610, a hypoxia-activated irreversible pan-erbB inhibitor scheduled to enter phase 1 trials this year.

During the visit, our guests from New Zealand had several meetings with senior members of the DDP and discussed future research plans as well as work collaborations between the two institutions.