IRVINE, CA / ACCESSWIRE / July 28, 2020 / Afecta Pharmaceuticals announces publication of a new study in collaboration with colleagues at the University of California at Irvine (UCI) that identifies novel mechanisms of action of Luteolin, a naturally occurring chemical found in several fruits and vegetables that inhibits growth of malignant melanoma in vitro and in vivo.

The paper published in the journal Biochemical Pharmacology https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bcp.2020.114025) discusses the most recent findings in elucidating novel mechanisms of action for Luteolin using PharmetRx^® , the company's A.I. driven computational platform for drug discovery and development. The study is part of a longer term drug discovery and development program that has been ongoing for 20 years that seeks to integrate systems biology data with chemical biology data and machine learning in order to develop a technology that makes new drug discovery and pre-clinical development more efficient and cost effective. Afecta is working day in and day out to help our colleagues in industry and the academic community to reduce the time and costs of bringing new treatments to patients while also reducing late stage clinical trial failures.

John Shomberg, Ph.D., who was the lead author on the publication and is Director of the Bioinformatics team at Afecta, stated that, 'This study on again demonstrates our computational platforms' unique and powerful capability to apply advanced machine learning to complex biological datasets. We are looking forward to the next step in this project. Using the chemical biology algorithms in PharmetRx we also have been able to identify key molecular features of Luteolin that provide its mechanism of action and design a series of new compounds that are likely to be even more effective'. Importantly in looking at our recent data it appears that in addition to malignant melanoma several other tumor types are inhibited.

According the Feng Liu-Smith, Ph.D., the principle investigator at UCI, 'Melanoma is the most serious type of skin cancer and the most difficult to treat. It often spreads to other sites in the body very early on. When this happens, it can be difficult to treat, and the outlook is often very poor. We are looking forward to testing the new compounds that have been created.'

Afecta Pharmaceuticals has previously applied the PharmetRx platform to development other new treatments for serious disorders affecting the eyes, central nervous system, skin and others. Their work has sparked interest from companies like Allergan, Supernus, AstraZeneca and others. They also collaborate with a number of universities in the US and abroad to create new therapeutics.

About Afecta Pharmaceuticals
Afecta Pharmaceuticals is a privately held drug discovery and development company that leverages several key technologies and is positioned to change the pharmaceutical paradigm through innovation.

CONTACT:
Bruce Kovacs
949 253 4688
bwk@afecatpharm.com

SOURCE: Afecta Pharmaceuticals Inc.