Susan L. Mooberry, PhD
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Susan L. Mooberry, PhD
Professor of
Pharmacology
Interim Director, Institute for Drug Development
Co-Leader, Experimental and Developmental Therapeutics Program
Cancer Therapy & Research Center
University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
7703 Floyd Curl Drive
San Antonio, TX, 78229
Our research is dedicated to the discovery of more effective therapies
for the treatment of cancer. There are several aspects to our work
including drug discovery, identification of the mechanisms of drug
action, the nature of drug resistance, identifying rational drug
combinations and elucidation of the signaling pathways by which
antimitotic agents prevent normal cell division and induce cancer cell
death.
We conduct a drug discovery program to identify new anticancer agents
from natural products and from small molecule chemical libraries. With
collaborators all over the world we evaluate extracts and compounds
from marine organisms and plants to identify new drug leads. We have
an extensive library of plant extracts from Texas plants that have
been evaluated for a variety of biological activities including
cytotoxic actions against breast and prostate cancer cell lines. The
active compounds are being isolated using bioassay-guided
fractionation.
After discovering new agents we identify their molecular mechanisms of
action. This includes identifying the cellular binding site and how
they work to kill cancer cells. We are currently investigating new
microtubule and vascular disrupting agents.
Antimitotic drugs are some of the most effective used in cancer
therapy, but the signaling pathways that lead from inhibition of
mitotic spindle dynamics to initiation of apoptosis is not yet known.
We are elucidating these pathways to identify new drug targets that
can yield the efficacy of microtubule disrupting drugs without tubulin-related
limiting toxicities.
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