Ajman varsity develops possible anti-cancer drug

Mariecar Jara-Puyod, Senior Reporter

A team of medical professors and students in Ajman may have the key to additional discoveries against cancer as initial or preclinical stages of their R&D have demonstrated promising results, based on tests independently conducted by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National institutes of Health in the US.

The team is composed of Gulf Medical University (GMU)-College of Pharmacy- Pharmaceutical Sciences Department chairperson/Medicinal Chemistry assistant professor Dr. Ahmed Thabet Negmeldin, Pharmacology associate professor Dr Ahmed Al-Abd, and Fourth/Final year students Fatiha Hammed and Dalia Yousef. They presented the findings of their ongoing four-year project, began when Hammed and Yousef were still freshmen, at the virtually organised June 22 to 25 American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting.

Commenting on the project, Professor Negmeldin said, ”Further experiments will be done to fully evaluate the compound and take it further to the next stage in the drug discovery and development which is testing on animals. This will also be done in collaboration with the NCI.”  Negmeldin is hopeful that even though NCI had temporarily halted all testings due to the Novel Coronavirus pandemic, the required supplementary preclinicals would be pursued. The compound, formulated to inhibit or stop the growth of cancer cells or best, kill cancer cells, had been “designed, chemically synthesised and characterised at the GMU laboratories. Negmeldin hopes the project, which is still in the cellular and mechanistic levels (of the preclinical trials), would go to a higher stage of development that will enrich the scientific community, other universities and research groups.  Professor Negmeldin is thankful for the willingness of NCI to collaborate with the team: “They partner when they see good science that advances their mission.”

Negmeldin got in touch with NCI for the three mandatory screenings, “They performed the testing on 60 different types of cells including the cells (surrounding or causing) leukaemia and cancers of the breast and colon. The findings showed that the compound displayed excellent inhibiting potencies.”

The positive development on the Ajman R&D comes in the wake of the recent official opening of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Medical Research Institute of the Al Jalila Foundation in Dubai that seeks to widen advancement in medicine through collaborative research and investigations within and outside of the UAE, resulting in the promotion of global public health.

Al Jalila Foundation-backed studies had revealed that cancer is among the five most serious health challenges in the country and across the region. The four others are cardiovascular diseases, obesity, diabetes, and mental health.