Venom-Senolytics: A new class of senolytics with applications in cancer and other aging-related diseases

Title: Venom-Senolytics: A new class of senolytics with applications in cancer and other aging-related diseases.  

Speaker: Dr. Maria Ikonomopoulou

Abstract:  The success of chemotherapy could be jeopardised by the appearance of senescence in the tumor microenvironment. Transiently, senescence acts as a barrier to tumour progression but persistent accumulation drives pathological inflammation and tumour relapse. A novel and promising therapeutic intervention could be to combine conventional anti-cancer treatments with senolytic agents. In this talk, we will present our new research line, which focuses on a novel class of senolytics derived from animal-venoms (aka venom-senolytic). We will present our optimised lead candidate, which shows selectivity towards various senescent cancer cells chemically induced by diverse senescence-stimuli. The observed selectivity is mediated by specific lipid-interactions. Mechanistically, the venom-senolytic induces potassium efflux and hyperpolarizes the plasma membrane of senescent cells. Importantly, it strongly synergizes with the CDK4/6 inhibitor palbociclib for remission of solid tumours in both mice and zebrafish xenograft melanoma models. 

Bio: Dr. Maria Ikonomopoulou is a Senior Research TALENTO Fellow (Program of excellence in research by the Madrid Government in Spain) and Head of the Translational Venomics Group at IMDEA-Food Institute in Madrid. Her research is focused on the biodiscovery, pharmacological characterisation, and optimisation of animal venom compounds as tools or agent candidates (anticancer: melanoma or anti-aging: senolytics). Therefore, she utilizes interdisciplinary approaches, including molecular, cell biology, state-of-the-art venomics, animal models of cancer and metabolic disorders as well as medicinal chemistry and structure-activity relationship. Her broad research goal is to understand the biology of senescence and cancer by the study of animal venoms and to discover new and safe venom-based anti-aging therapies.