Five-year CRUK programme grant awarded

The Tate group has been awarded a five-year CRUK programme grant to build on their research targeting protein lipidation in cancer

The five-year programme grant, from Cancer Research UK and EPSRC, is to study protein lipidation, which is a widespread class of post-translational modification mediated by over 40 distinct enzymes modifying >150 known oncoproteins - proteins underlying initiation or progression of cancer. The programme grant starts in April 2022, and aims to identify and validate novel oncology drug targets in the protein lipidation network, supported by collaborations with groups at the Francis Crick Institute, Institute of Cancer Research, CRUK Beatson Institute, Imperial College, and MRC London Institute for Medical Sciences, as well as groups in the US (Stanford and UCSF) and Australia (Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre).

The new grant is jointly funded by CRUK and EPSRC and will support a team of several postdoctoral scientists and students in the Tate Imperial and Crick labs, building on previous research under a CRUK Programme Foundation Award. It will further develop the lab's chemical proteomic profiling technologies, integrating them with cutting edge drug discovery across three key classes of lipid post-translational modification S-acylation (also termed palmitoylation), N-myristoylation and S-prenylation (farnesylation and geranylgeranylation). The Programme will also leverage ongoing collaborations with companies focused on targeting protein lipidation in the clinic, including Myricx Pharma, Kura Oncology, and Merck/MSD.