Vall d'Hebron Institut d'Oncologia (VHIO)
Life & Medical Sciences
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Research interests
Our focus is the Myc oncoprotein, whose deregulation is implicated in almost all human cancer types. We have designed a Myc dominant negative, Omomyc, to investigate the therapeutic benefit of inhibiting Myc in cancer. We demonstrated that Myc inhibition has a remarkable therapeutic index in many mouse models of cancer, while only causing mild and reversible side effects in normal tissues. We also showed that Myc is a safe pharmacological target for many, perhaps all, cancers. Our goal is now to push such a therapeutic approach further towards the clinic. To do so we are making use of a new generation of Myc inhibitory cell-penetrating miniproteins. Our first compound, OMO-103, successfully completed Phase I clinical trial in 2022. These innovative treatments could boost our therapeutic arsenal against the majority of human cancers.