M.Sc. in Surgery defense

MScAEA2013

Dr. Abdulrahman Essam Alsabban defended his MSc in Surgery thesis entitled: “Establishing methods to screen novel small molecules targeting insulin-like growth factor/insulin-like growth factor binding protein interaction” on July 18th.

Insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) are important hormone regulators of growth and development that have also been implicated in the etiology of several cancers. The bioavailability and activity of IGFs are controlled by a family of carrier proteins called IGF binding proteins. We hypothesize that molecules targeting IGF binding by IGF binding proteins can be used to affect the bioavailability of IGFs to target tissues and thus be used for treatment of various IGF-responsive diseases including prostate cancer. In this thesis, I developed a Bio-Layer interferometry-based assay that measures IGF binding protein/IGF-I binding kinetics. I then used IGF, a mutant of IGF and insulin as molecules with varying affinity for IGF binding proteins for proof-of-principle studies demonstrating that this assay can be used to screen for factors that might be developed as rationale therapeutics to disrupt sequestration of IGF-I by IGFBPs.
posted : 2013-July-16