Associate professor Adam Zweifach from the University of Connecticut Department of Molecular and Cell Biology has received a PITCH (Program in Innovative Therapeutics for Connecticut’s Health) Promising Project award. The research project aims to identify selective small molecule inhibitors of an enzyme implicated in many cancers.
The funding will allow Zweifach to obtain a commercially available compound that inhibits hexokinase 2 (HK2). HK2 is an enzyme that is upregulated, or over-produced, in many types of cancer. HK2 contributes to the Warburg Effect, a phenomenon in which cancer cells produce energy through increased oxygen-dependent glycolysis, which allows them to proliferate rapidly. Non-cancerous cells do not use this mechanism of energy production.