Brock chemist Tomas Hudlicky will head a research team to develop anticancer drugs for Lorus Therapeutics.

The fight against cancer has been bumped up a notch following Brock University’s agreement with Lorus Therapeutics Inc. to develop novel anticancer drugs.

Chemist Tomas Hudlicky heads a research team at Brock that has synthesized chemical derivatives of the natural compound pancratistatin.

Under the agreement, Lorus will test the anticancer activity and drug-like properties of derivatives produced by Hudlicky’s group. The natural compound pancratistatin has been shown to have strong anti-tumor activity against a number of cancers with minimal toxic effects on normal cells.

Brock University will share jointly with Lorus in new intellectual property created from this partnership.

The Brock University-Lorus Therapeutics Inc. partnership has been made possible through funding from the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario’s Applied Research and Commercialization (ARC) Initiative.

“This is an exciting new opportunity,” says John Wilson, Brock’s director of Innovation and Commercialization.

“Professor Hudlicky has an impressive track record commercializing his scientific discoveries, and we are very happy that this new partnership is with Lorus, an innovative company also located in Ontario.”

Lorus President and CEO Aiping Young said the company looks forward to working with Hudlicky, who is also a Canada Research Chair in Biocatalysis.

“Tomas and his group have done some ground-breaking work,” said Young, “and we are very pleased to join this effort in developing novel derivatives of pancratistatin, which we believe is a new and exciting approach to cancer treatment.”