Dec 15 2022: PhD defence of Mrs Jiabin Xu
On the 15th of December 2022, Mrs Jiabin Xu successfully defended her PhD thesis entitled "Repositioning the Anti-Leprosy Drug Clofazimine Against Wnt-Dependent Cancers". Her thesis was conducted under the direction of Pr. Vladimir Katanaev from the Department of Cell physiology and metabolism.
Wnt signaling pathway is an important pathway for stem cell maintenance and tissue regeneration which is hijacked in several cancers. Despite the efforts invested in finding inhibitors of Wnt signalling, only a few molecules reached clinical trials while many have failed due to toxicity. Drug repositioning is considered an attractive strategy for identifying new use for already approved or investigational drugs.
In that context, the PhD thesis of Jiabin Xu aimed to explore the potential of clofazimine, an approved drug to treat leprosy, against Wnt-dependent cancers such as triple negative breast cancer and to bring valuable insights into the field of designing new Wnt inhibitors for cancer drug development.
15 Dec 2022