Phosphatase Inhibitors

Medicinal Chemistry Team Three

Section: Cancer Research UK Cancer Therapeutics Unit

We have an interest in targeting phosphatase enzymes which are involved in cell signalling via dephosphorylation of key proteins. Hits from high-throughput screening have been generated and we hope to be able to apply structure-based drug design principles to the problem in the near future. In addition, we are developing a synthetic library of potential phosphatase inhibitors from a natural product lead compound. This involves the use of novel cycloaddition chemistry to rapidly build up the polycyclic core required.