Discovery On Target 2014 | Targeting BET Bromodomains in Cancer

In a recent interview, Cambridge Healthtech Institute spoke with Dr. Jialiang Wang about his outlook on targeting BET Bromodomains in Cancer. Questions included: 1. Part of your research focuses on epigenetic therapeutic approaches, particularly for glioblastoma tumors, where targeting BET bromodomains are of interest. Can you speak to us a little about the underlying biological/genetic rationale for researchers targeting these proteins in glioblastoma tumors? 2. Since your work also aims to develop novel therapeutic drugs, what initial approaches have you taken to validate BET bromodomains as both druggable and potentially efficacious targets? What early signs of efficacy are you noticing in vivo? 3. One important consideration when thinking about drugging individual BET proteins is unintended consequences of inhibition as they have known roles as co-repressors as well as co-activators. Do you have such concerns? What do you notice during your work? Do you have potential concerns of toxicity for these inhibitors now in early human testing? 4. What is your outlook for the potential hurdles developers will face who are starting to target BET bromodomains? What are current challenges that need to be overcome to help maximize their potential benefit for patients? Dr. Jialiang Wang will be discussing this in more depth at Discovery on Target’s Targeting Epigenetic Readers and Chromatin Remodelers Conference. Learn more at http://www.discoveryontarget.com/Epigenetic-Readers