Christopher Hulme, PhD

Clinical and Translational Oncology Program

Biography

Christopher Hulme completed his D.Phil at Oxford University. Subsequently, he spent 15 years in big pharma, holding positions as head of High-throughput Medicinal Chemistry and Global Head of Platform Library Sciences. As such, he established targeted and diversity oriented screening collections, engaging in over 60 hit-lead and multiple lead optimization campaigns. He joined the University of Arizona in 2007. Currently, his lab is focused on small molecule drug design. The development of small molecule inhibitors of kinases is of interest and in 2018 he co-founded Iluminos Therapeutics, currently pushing forward a small molecule into IND enabling studies for the treatment of Down Syndrome and Alzheimer's Disease. 

Cancer Focus

The group has advanced inhibitors of DYRK1B for the treatment of CRPC (Prof. Ed Gelmann). DYRK2/3 inhibition is being studied for the treatment of glioblastoma. The latter exhibit their effects through destabilizing proteostasis. Small molecule inhibition of the kinase HASPIN, implicated to play a pivotal role in pancreatic cancer are well positioned. The group has also discovered potent inhibitors of the LBD of AR, which appear to behave has inhibitors of the splice variant Arv7. Mechanistic studies are underway with U. Pitt.. Moreover, the lab has a kinase franchise with inhibitors of cancer-related kinases such as FLT3, PI3K-gamma, PIK-1, Clk1, IRAK1 and PI4kIIIbeta.