PROJECT SUMMARY

New drugs are critical for the development of useful therapeutic strategies for MDS. Some of the most frequent mutations associated with MDS affect how 6 billion pieces of DNA information, our genetic material, is compacted into a tiny cell. Our genetic material is also modified by mutations in genes called DNMT3a or TET2 that control which of our 20,000 genes can be turned on or off appropriately. The support from EvansMDS at Vanderbilt allows potential drug candidates to be made available at no cost to our researchers to examine the usefulness of these drugs in MDS. These screening tools have enhanced our ability to make progress in MDS research and drug discovery. This research has already provided key seed data for exciting collaborations and additional funding for researches to further explore the next key experiments and hypotheses. In time, these studies may inform the discovery of new anti-cancer therapeutics to be used in MDS.