Source: Mr Shoaib Rana

Dr Shoaib Rana AMJ Germany

Note by the Editor: By the grace of Almighty Allah AMJ Germany has been blessed with lot of talented youngsters including males and females. For the interest of MT readers effort has been started to introduce these talented Ahmadi Muslims specially to those who claim these days Muslim youth is void of higher education and research.  Below is the introduction of Thesis written by Dr Shoaib Rana who recently completed his Phd in science:

For complete Thesis please click HERE

The transfer of new peptides to clinical applications is often difficult. One major drawback is the metabolic instability, which results in serum degradation, decreased tumor to organ ratios and enhanced background activity. Therefore, further investigation of the ligand is necessary, prior to its use for clinical application. In this direction identification of the binding region in the peptide sequence is of high importance since it could lead to smaller derivatives with increased tumor penetration and target affinity, allowing at the same time targeted modifications for optimization of the metabolic stability. Aim of the present study is the optimization of the properties of CaIX-P1. To identify the binding amino acids alanine scanning was performed and various fragments of the peptide were synthesized and tested for affinity and specificity on human cancer cells over-expressing CA IX. A derivative that was identified to possess improved binding characteristics was further evaluated in vitro and in vivo. The results of our study indicate molecular modifications that are necessary for optimization of CA IX targeting strategies and reveal challenges associated with optimizing phage-display derived peptides.