WEHI Postgraduate Seminar hosted by the Scientific Education Committee

Professor David Huang

Laboratory Head – Blood Cells and Blood Cancer division, WEHI

BH3 mimetics: a legacy of discovery at WEHI
 

Davis Auditorium

Join via TEAMS

Including Q&A session

Targeting BCL2 with venetoclax has transformed the treatment of many blood cancers. Now approved in Australia and around the world for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML), venetoclax is also being explored in clinical trials for other blood cancers and solid tumors.

This breakthrough can be traced back to pioneering research at WEHI. In 1988, David Vaux, Suzanne Cory, and Jerry Adams discovered that BCL2 promotes cells survival, an unexpected finding at the time. Two decades of intensive research and collaboration with industry followed, leading to the creation of BH3 mimetics, drugs designed to mimic the BH3-only proteins, physiological antagonists of BCL2 and its pro-survival relatives, such as MCL1. These efforts culminated in venetoclax, a BH3 mimetic selectively targeting BCL2. Its transformative potential was demonstrated in clinical trials led by neighboring institutional partners (Andrew Roberts et al., NEJM 2016).

This presentation will trace the journey – from a WEHI perspetive – of the BH3 mimetics from discovery to clinical impact.

All welcome!