"Search for Anti-Cancer Drugs and Success Stories" • Sarath Gunasekera, Ph.D. About the 2004 Lecture This presentation highlights the importance of natural products chemistry in the field of cancer chemotherapy. The lecture begins with a brief introduction of cancer and overview of drugs available for chemotherapy, followed by a short account of my studies on anti-cancer agents derived from plants and marine organisms. Two of these anti-cancer agents, etoposide and vincristine, are currently used as drugs in clinics. Harbor Branch's most successful anti-cancer compound is discodermolide, which is in Phase 1 clinical trials for pancreatic cancer at the Saint Antonio Cancer Institute in Texas. There are 24 U.S. patents and over 350 scientific papers on discodermolide and its analogues. The lecture will highlight studies on discodermolide by other competing groups and our continuing studies to protect our patented claims on its composition and anti-cancer properties. The presentation will conclude by discussing our work on structure-activity-relationship studies that lead to the discovery of the pharmacophore of discodermolide. About the Speaker Dr. Sarath P. Gunasekera was educated in Sri Lanka and received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry in 1976 from the University of Sri Lanka. A year later, he immigrated to the United States. He completed postdoctoral research on anti-cancer agents from plants at the University of Illinois, Chicago, followed by further postdoctoral studies on anti-cancer agents from marine organisms at the University of Oklahoma. Dr. Gunasekera joined Harbor Branch's SeaPharm project in 1985 and is currently Chemistry Group Leader in the Division of Biomedical Marine Research. He has authored or co-authored more than 140 scientific publications in natural products chemistry of plants, microorganisms, marine organisms, and semi-synthetic chemistry of natural products. Dr. Gunasekera is an inventor and co-inventor of 25 U.S. patents including the composition and use patents on the anti-cancer sponge metabolite discodermolide, currently undergoing Phase-1 clinical trials. He is also a co-inventor of a number of foreign patents. His present research interests include marine natural products chemistry with an emphasis on biologically active compounds having potential medicinal value.

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