Lecturer
School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia
Minden, 11800 Penang, Malaysia
Tel: 604-6577888 Ext. 4582
Email: : aminmalikshah@usm.my
Fax: 604-6570017
Education:
BSc.(Auckland),PGDip.Sci.(Auckland) M Sc. (UNSW,Aus.), Ph D. (UNSW,Aus.)
Discipline:
Pharmacology
Research Interest:
Cancer is fatal disease that is affecting one in every five Malaysians. The treatment success varies considerably with early detection being the most important factor. Chemotherapy is the mainstay for cancer treatment but it can cause adverse side effects and is highly unaffordable particularly the more modern drugs. The main aim of our research activity is to find cheap anti-tumor agents that also have fewer side effects.
We are interested in natural products that cause inhibition in blood vessel development, a process commonly referred as antiangiogenesis. This process is vital for tumor growth and is the key step for metastasis. Antiangiogenic agents are generally non-cytotoxic hence have fewer side effects. One of the emerging techniques in treating cancer is to couple antiangiogenic agents with classical chemotherapy. This has shown marked improvement in prolonging survival of cancer patients. The new antiangiogenic drugs however, are unaffordable to the general public. With the aid of the NaPIMM molecular modeling software package developed in USM by Habibah Wahab and coworkers, our team identified a series of plants that have compounds which can target the VEGFR2 receptor, a key receptor in angiogenesis pathway. By using an ex-vivo 3-Dimensional tissue culture technique, we screened standardized extracts of the potential plant short listed in NaPIMM for any antiangiogenic activity. We identified Bitter melon, Nutmeg and Misai Kucing to be amongst the most active plant species. We were able to distinguish the solvent system that gave the strongest response and the optimum dose required. We are currently co-administering classical chemotherapy agents with these extracts to see any synergistic activity in vitro and in vivo tumor models. We are also interested in looking at the genes that are being perturbed by co-administration of these extracts with classical chemotherapy drugs in the angiogenesis and carcinogenesis pathways. In the out set of this work, we are interested in how chemotherapeutic agents interact with the nucleic acid. By employing mass spectrometry machines, we are able to pin point the exact location of drug binding on the DNA. This information helps us to better design chemotherapeutic agents that interact with the DNA in a more sequence specific manner. We are currently developing a peptide based molecule that targets the hypoxic responsive element which activates VEGF. We hope this molecule is able to demonstrate potent antiangiogenic response.
