Publications by authors named "Devan J Wilkins"

Cancer metastasis is the primary cause of the high mortality rate among human cancers. Efforts to identify therapeutic agents targeting cancer metastasis frequently fail to demonstrate efficacy in clinical trials despite strong preclinical evidence. Until recently, most preclinical studies used mouse models to evaluate anti-metastatic agents.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study focuses on improving the delivery of cancer treatments using nanotechnology, specifically targeting metastatic tumors in prostate cancer models that lack certain tumor suppressor genes.
  • Researchers found that cabozantinib not only treats cancer but also activates neutrophils to help deliver BSA-coated nanoparticles (BSA-NPs) directly to tumors, significantly enhancing their uptake.
  • Results showed a substantial increase in BSA-NP accumulation in tumors when combined with cabozantinib, while also reducing delivery to the liver, highlighting a promising approach to improve cancer therapy effectiveness and reduce side effects.
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Adenoid cystic carcinomas (ACC) are rare salivary gland cancers with a high incidence of metastases. In order to study this tumor type, a reliable model system exhibiting the molecular features of this tumor is critical, but none exists, thereby inhibiting in-vitro studies and the analysis of metastatic behavior. To address this deficiency, we have coupled an efficient method to establish tumor cell cultures, conditional reprogramming (CR), with a rapid, reproducible and robust in-vivo zebrafish model.

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The identification and prioritization of chemically tractable therapeutic targets is a significant challenge in the discovery of new medicines. We have developed a novel method that rapidly screens multiple proteins in parallel using DNA-encoded library technology (ELT). Initial efforts were focused on the efficient discovery of antibacterial leads against 119 targets from Acinetobacter baumannii and Staphylococcus aureus.

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