Peptone’s c-Myc antagonist program is advanced with UCL Cancer Institute and Prof. Marc Mansour. See Partnering and Collaborations on the pipeline page for detail.
Lead Optimization
c-Myc antagonist
A lead optimization program developing an antagonist of the intrinsically disordered transcription factor c-Myc, advanced with UCL Cancer Institute disease biology.
- Target
- Modality
- Indication
- Stage
Target
c-Myc is a transcription factor that is disordered outside of its complex with MAX and is deregulated across a broad range of cancers. Direct pharmacological control of c-Myc has been considered undruggable because it presents no classical binding pocket.
Approach
Peptone applies its Product Engine to characterise the conformational ensemble of c-Myc and to search for binders that disrupt its productive interactions. This extends the same disorder-first discovery work beyond aggregation targets into transcriptional biology.
Preclinical
Lead optimization work focuses on improving the emerging chemical series against defined disordered regions. Mechanism-of-action studies are advanced with Prof. Marc Mansour at UCL Cancer Institute in MYC-driven leukaemia and transcriptional models.
Development Plan
The program is in lead optimization, where chemical series are pressure-tested in disease models to support later candidate selection.
Collaborations
-
UCL
London, United Kingdom
Prof. Marc Mansour
Professor of Haematology, UCL Cancer Institute
Mapping c-Myc mechanism of action with leukaemia biology and MYC-driven disease models at UCL.
View collaboration -
UCPH
Copenhagen N, Denmark
Prof. Kresten Lindorff-Larsen
Professor of Computational Protein Biophysics, Department of Biology
Revealing rare, transiently structured states in disordered proteins through multithermal simulation and experimental reweighting.
View collaboration