Speaker:   Prof. Galina Selivanova
Karolinska Instituet Stockholm, Sweden

Title:  Pharmacological reactivation of p53 to treat cancer

Host:  PD Dr. Lüder Hinrich Meyer

Announcement

Galina Selivanova holds the position of full Professor in Cell and Tumour Biology and  Lab Head at the department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology (MTC) at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. Dr.Selivanova has been actively working on the tumour suppressor protein p53 since 1992 and is now an internationally recognized p53 researcher, one of the leading scientists in the world in studies aimed at p53 reactivation by small molecules.
Her pioneer studies on mutant p53 reactivation published in Nature Medicine in 1997 provided the proof-of-principle of mutant p53 rescue. She has published more than 80 articles in peer-reviewed journals and is the co-inventor of 6 patents. Her publications in Nature Medicine in 2002 and 2004 and two publications in 2009 in Cancer Cell on p53-reactivating compounds PRIMA-1 and RITA have got a lot of attention from researchers, clinicians, pharmaceutical companies and media.
Prof. Selivanova is a founder of small biotech company Aprea AB which  works on development of p53 reactivating compounds into novel generation non-genotoxic target-specific anti-cancer therapies.  ApreaAB has performed two Phase I studies testing one of the derivatives of   PRIMA-1 (commercial name Apr-246) in patients with refractory haematological malignancies, prostate cancer and ovarian cancer, which provide encouraging results. Aprea AB is currently testing  Apr-246 in Phase II clinical trial in patients with  ovarian cancer (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:NCT02098343).
In her studies Prof. Selivanova is addressing the basic questions of p53 biology in order to find the tools to manipulate p53 for a longer cancer-free life.