Researchers aim to develop oral anticancer drug that blocks immune evasion by cancer cells

Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology. [Herald DB]
Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology. [Herald DB]

The Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology announced Monday that a joint immunotherapy drug development project proposed by Kim Yong-cheol, a professor in the Department of Life Sciences, and a researcher at the Daegu-Gyeongbuk Medical Innovation Foundation has been selected for the first round of the 2026 National New Drug Development Project under the "drug foundation expansion research (hit compound stage)" category.

The National New Drug Development Project is a cross-ministry national research and development initiative launched to strengthen the global competitiveness of South Korea's pharmaceutical and biotech industries. Running for 10 years from 2021, it supports the full cycle of drug development with the goals of building a stronger domestic drug development ecosystem, generating globally applicable results, and producing public-interest outcomes in the healthcare sector.

The joint research team will spend three years, from April 2026 to March 2029, working to secure small-molecule CD73-targeting candidate compounds that could lead to new drug development.

The team plans to develop an oral immune-oncology drug by inhibiting the activity of CD73, an enzyme on the surface of cancer cells, to reduce the production of adenosine — an immune-suppressing substance — and enable immune cells to attack cancer cells more effectively.

In the project, GIST will draw on its expertise in medicinal chemistry and structure-based drug design to identify initial candidate compounds, while K-MEDI Hub will use its drug development support infrastructure to verify efficacy and mechanisms of action.

"The CD73-adenosine pathway is a well-validated mechanism for developing immune-oncology drugs," said Kim, the project's principal investigator. "This research aims to secure oral immunotherapy drug candidates targeting that validated mechanism, addressing a significant area of unmet medical need."


sij@heraldcorp.com