New LAT1 inhibitor can boost cancer treatment

We just got accepted a paper, in which our compound, a LAT1-inhibitor (published for the first time in 2016) was studied further. In this just-released paper, we found that our compound is hemocompatible, meaning it is safe in systemic circulation and doesn't cause any blood clotting and unwanted effects on the endothelial cells of the blood vessels. However, since cancer cells require an increased amount of amino acids for their growth, blocking the amino acid supply can be a powerful option to starve cancer cells. L-type amino acid transporter 1 (LAT1) delivers large and neutral amino acids, and thus by inhibiting its function we were able to induce the programmed death of cancer cells. In this paper, we showed that this apoptosis was mediated via inhibition of cell signaling pathways that include mTOR and NF-KB protein production. Although being effective alone, we still think that this compound is most efficacious if used with another anti-cancer drug, since cancer cell have always ways to circumvent the problems they face! Meaning that there is also another way to get these essential amino acids, which cancer cells may start to use if the primary supply is blocked. Therefore, these secondary supplies should be blocked at the same time, like we did in this study with bestatin, amino acid peptidase inhibitor, a compound that inhibits enzymes that can cut down amino acids from the peptides. One of the most important findings in this study was, however, that this LAT1-inhibitor did not affect amino acid content in the brain. Since LAT1 is highly expressed in the brain in addition to cancer cells, there is always a risk, that this kind of inhibition could lead to unwanted side effects in the central nervous system. However, we showed for the first time herein, that that this inhibition did not affect the amount of essential amino acids in the brain. The paper is open access release, and can be read from the following link:

Hemocompatible LAT1-inhibitor can induce apoptosis in cancer cells without affecting brain amino acid homeostasis

As there has been a lot of focus around the new possible COVID-19 treatments and vaccinations, I decided to make a press release of this exciting compound (link below). 

Press release at UEF www-site of LAT1 inhibitor

And what usually happens, one thing leads to another and I was invited to discuss cancer drug development in our smart cafe podcast on Tuesday 2nd of June (the advertisement below). Unfortunately, this podcast is only in Finnish, but the funny thing is that the development of novel cancer treatments is only half of the discussion, the other half we bill filled by COVID-19 vaccination by Prof. Seppo Ylä-Herttuala. And the funniest thing is that Seppo knows more than me about clinical cancer drug development, but obviously, they wanted to have a young female representative with an early pre-clinical point of view. At least, I hope, since that's what they are going to get! :)

A recent review paper

We have just published a review paper in Pharmaceutical Research -journal that discusses LAT1 (L-type amino acid transporter 1) as a drug carrier. The paper was part of Dr. Elena Puris Ph.D. thesis, and after all, went even beyond what was written in her thesis. Basically, it discusses not only the opportunities of utilizing LAT1 for improved or targeted drug delivery but also challenges related to the LAT1-mediated drug delivery. From the following link, you can get to the free PMC article:

L-Type amino acid transporter 1 as a target for drug delivery.

Elena was a Ph.D. student in my research group during the years 2016-2019 and graduated in September 2019. Last August she greatly defended her thesis as Prof. Mikko Niemi as an opponent. And according to tradition, we had a nice after-party. It was also awesome to see some traditions from Elena's home country. Cheers to Elena!

Distant working during the COVID-19 period

We have been working at home due to the COVID-19 pandemia now for almost 2 months. For most of the group leaders, this has not been any problem, all meetings can be held easily via conferencing tools, and most of the office work can be done at home, but for the technicians and Ph.D. students, it can be a problem when you really need to do the work in the lab. And since the funding situation is really problematic at the moment, grants are short and hard to achieve due to the very competitive nature, this can worry people a lot. At the moment it looks that we can slowly start working in the lab, but it all depends on how things develop with the pandemia. I will continue working at home since my presence at the university is not necessarily needed. And some times I think the meetings are more efficient vie conferencing tools than in face-to-face situations. Although, I must admit that I miss social contacts and daily conversions with my group mates. We actually have created a virtual coffee room in TEAMS, and usually, people meet there at lunchtime. We have had really fruitful conversations and it had helped me a lot to survive! 

Another thing that has been a bit difficult to organize is teaching. I had an Organic synthesis laboratory course going on when the COVID-19 break started and I was hoping that we could go back to finish the course in the lab in May, but now it is obvious that we need to finish it by doing written homework. Of course, this will never cover all the experience and skills that a student can learn in the lab, but what else we can do? However, I must admit that we have really good facilities at the UEF for distant learning and teaching and a lot of pedagogical knowledge of e-learning and e-teaching in house. so at the moment, I'm also very happy that I decided to attend the pedagogical training specialized in e-learning and e-teaching last autumn. At least I know what to do and how to do it!

I was also very worried at the beginning of this period about the working ergonomics, not only of my own but also of my group members. Before the period, I had worked at home mainly on the sofa and on the kitchen table. Not anything that I can recommend, so I decided that it is not going to work for a long period of time and I also didn't want to build up my office to our small kitchen-living room. That wouldn't have been fair to the rest of the family. I have already worked on an electronic table at the university for a couple of years, so it was obvious, that I wanted to continue working by standing on my feet. And the only option was to build up this kind of office to the children's room. Luckily, they didn't mind about it at all! So this has worked quite nicely for me, and so far I haven't had any problems with neck or shoulder pain like I haven't had since I've got the electronic table. So for those who wonder how the science is done, the figure will tell the rest! :)