The Director of the US National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Dr Barry O’Keefe recently visited Pretoria to deliver seminars on Natural Products Drug Discovery and build on collaborations. Dr O’Keefe was co-hosted by the University of Pretoria’s Biodiscovery Centre (in the Chemistry Department) and the African Centre for Gene Technologies.
The two seminars were open to all local stakeholders involved in Natural Products as well as Drug Discovery research.
- The first seminar was titled “Natural Product Drug Discovery at the National Cancer Institute, US: New Approaches, New Targets and New Compounds” and focused on natural product research at the NCI; inclusive of a new initiative, the NCI Program for Natural Product Research, which aims to accelerate natural product-based drug discovery. The seminar also included examples of new assays, partnerships and compounds discovered (including both anti-cancer and antimicrobial compounds).
- The follow-on seminar was titled “Discovery and Development of Bioactive Natural Products” featured discoveries from the Molecular Targets Program and their path towards development. It included two examples of anti-cancer compounds, originally isolated from source organisms from South Africa and the clinical development of a unique anti-coronavirus agent currently in clinical trials for the prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Both events drew large audiences to the Hatfield Campus’ Merensky Library Auditorium. Attendees hailed from the Universities of Johannesburg, Pretoria, the Witwatersrand, Venda, UNISA, the CSIR, the ARC, Tshwane University of Technology, the Department of Science and Innovation and Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University. There were also a contingent of online attendees who were unable to travel to Pretoria for the second day of the meetings.
Following the second seminar, Dr O’Keefe led a roundtable discussion session with young researchers who shared experiences and described their research. Sample, methodology and experience sharing was discussed and encouraged. Dr O’Keefe in turn shared some sage career advice for collaborative and impactful research.
Dr O’Keefe imparted key takeaways:
- Natural Products (NPs) research remains highly relevant and useful- a large percentage of current drugs are based on natural products.
- High-throughput drug screens should include more NPs as percentage of the overall screening sample size.
- Current high throughput screening campaigns are not compatible with NPs crude extracts.
- NCI has developed a pre-fractionation methodology over several years and produced in excess of 550 000 fractions.
- NPs can (and should) be sourced widely- the NCI has soil, marine and plant samples; as well as citizen science samples in their collection.
- It is important to demonstrate the mechanism of action of proposed lead compounds.
- It takes multiple techniques and disciplines to put NPs on shelves. For example, during the product development process, it is vital to consult a product formulation and application team as early as possible. The ACGT plans to form more collaborative consortiums to incorporate the multiple disciplines.
UP and ACGT representatives had the opportunity to share some sightings of South Africa’s wildlife on an afternoon game drive with Dr O’Keefe at the nearby Dinokeng nature reserve. The animals treated Dr O’Keefe to close encounters with an elephant bull (in must), giraffe and calf, rhino and calf, and several antelope. The game drive experience was concluded with a dinner in the reserve.
UP’s Biodiscovery Centre and the ACGT wishes to thanks Dr O’Keefe for a productive and insightful visit. We look forward to future collaborations.
Links: https://ccr.cancer.gov/staff-directory/barry-r-okeefe
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8130845/pdf/nihms-1689351.pdf