Sam '23 places 1st in regional science fair

Sam Lustig '23 won the Cellular/Molecular Biology category of the Middle Tennessee Science and Engineering Fair at Belmont University on Friday, March 25.

He writes, “In my project, we introduced a compound called A1874 to prostate cancer cells. The compound is a proteolysis targeting chimera (PROTAC) which degrades the intracellular protein, BRD4. BRD4 is amplified in numerous prostate cancer phenotypes – the protein plays a role in chemotherapeutic resistance and facilitation of tumor proliferation. There is a current standard-of-care BRD4 inhibitor, but the problem with this inhibitor is that it has lower specificity for the protein and inflicts cell death at higher concentrations in a reversible process, whereas, A1874 targets BRD4 in an irreversible process. We showed that A1874 inhibits prostate cancer cell proliferation at low concentrations in BRD4 over-expressive prostate cancer cell lines. Thus, targeting BRD4 via protein knockdown technology provides promise over classic inhibition as a possible targeted therapy for prostate cancer patients with heightened BRD4 expression."