A research publication from the Cancer Therapeutics Lab at SBASSE, LUMS has received the prestigious Bashir-Alavi award from Shaukat Khanum Symposium 2021. The study, published in the “British Journal of Cancer” was led by MS student Muhammad Usama Tariq and supervised by Dr Amir Faisal with contributions from other MS and PhD students. The LUMS community is proud of this achievement and congratulates the department of life sciences. 
Every year, the Bashir-Alavi award celebrates the best cancer research publication to have come out of Pakistan. This is to acknowledge the indigenous research carried out at institutes in Pakistan that helps fight this devastating disease. Different cancer types have different underlying causes that determine the prognosis. One-third of Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) patients, for example, have mutated form of a protein called Fms-like tyrosine kinase 3 (FLT3) that confers poor prognosis. FLT3 is a receptor tyrosine kinase that regulates the production and differentiation of different blood cells. Different FLT3 inhibitors have been discovered and evaluated in the clinic, but their success has been limited due to the emergence of acquired resistance. The award-winning research at SBASSE has now identified and validated a drug-like molecule, CCT245718, that can kill the AML cancer cells that are resistant to different FLT3 inhibitors. The molecule inhibits two targets Aurora A mitotic kinase and FLT3 tyrosine kinase receptor, that helps it overcome the acquired resistance. The research was funded by the Faculty Initiative Fund (FIF) and Startup Grants awarded by LUMS to Dr Amir Faisal.