Grant: Project Grant

A highly conserved group of proteins, referred to as the Hippo pathway, act to regulate cell and tissue growth. Virtually all solid tumors have disruptions in this critical signalling cascade and this drives processes that promote tumorigenesis. We recently identified a class of enzymes called NUAK kinases as key regulators of the Hippo pathway that promote tumorigenesis. Patient tumors of diverse origins display high expression of NUAKs. Kinases are highly amenable to the development of targeted inhibitors, thus in this proposal, we will identify potent and specific inhibitors of NUAKs with the long-term goal of establishing new and improved therapies for the treatment of Hippo pathway driven cancers.