By Lev Osherovich, Senior Writer
An Israeli academic-industry partnership has discovered small
molecules that interfere wi th signaling by insulin-like
growth factor-1 receptor, a cancer-associated receptor
tyrosine kinase. The new compounds, licensed to NovoTyr Therapeutics Ltd., could
be superior to conventional approaches to hitting this target because they
cause destruction of two key downstream effectors, insulin
receptor substrate
1 and insulin
receptor substrate 2.1
Excessive
activity of insulin-like growth factor-1 receptor (IGF1R;
CD221)
is a common feature in many tumor types. When activated by extracellular
ligands such as insulin and insulin-like growth
factor-1 (IGF-1),
IGF1R recruits the intracellular proteins insulin receptor substrate 1 (IRS1)
and IRS2 to relay a proliferative signal to a
range of downstream pathways that drive tumor growth.2