Research Magazine

Auburn Research
Spring/Summer 2022
Cohort Combats Cancer
Diverse drug discovery team brings decades of experience to fight against deadly disease

Dr. Gary Piazza, a renowned scientist, has brought his cancer drug development program to the Harrison College of Pharmacy.

Piazza joined Auburn in March 2021 as department head and professor in the Department of Drug Discovery and Development and director of a new Cancer Research Center in the Harrison College of Pharmacy. A highly respected cancer investigator with more than 30 years in the field, Piazza came to Auburn after 10 years at the University of South Alabama Mitchell Cancer Institute. He brought with him a four-member lab team and over three million dollars in grant funding from the NIH National Cancer Institute.

“I became interested in developing anticancer drugs in the early 1990s,” Piazza said. “I was then with a pharmaceutical company developing an experimental anticancer drug called exisulind that was chemically related to the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug, sulindac. Sulindac is used primarily to treat pain and inflammation caused by arthritis but is not recommended for cancer indications because of potentially fatal toxicities.

It was an exciting research effort to advance a drug from early laboratory studies all the way through phase three clinical trials, but in the end, exisulind was discovered to have liver toxicity and only modest efficacy.

So I went back to the drawing board and re-entered academia to do more basic research.”

Over the next 20 years, Piazza focused on more in-depth fundamental research, studying the mechanism of action of sulindac and synthesizing hundreds of derivatives to reduce toxicity and improve efficacy.

An unexpected discovery from this research led to a novel class of compounds that potently and selectively kill cancer cells with activated RAS. RAS is a critically important cell signaling protein that is mutated in a high percentage of cancer patients, according to Piazza. Mutations in RAS genes encode for RAS proteins that cause normal cells to become cancerous and spread to other parts of the body. A RAS inhibitor has the potential to treat the deadliest malignancies, including pancreatic, lung and colon cancers.

Pictured from the left: Dr. Xi Chen, Kristy Berry, Dr. Adam Keeton and Dr. Gary Piazza.

“RAS is very problematic in that it is almost impossible to inhibit its activity, and many pharmaceutical compounds have tried to develop RAS inhibitors but have failed for various reasons,” Piazza said. “RAS is of immense oncologic importance with hundreds of labs studying various aspects of RAS biology or attempting to develop RAS inhibitors. There is perhaps no greater unmet medical need in oncology than for a broadly efficacious and safe inhibitor of activated RAS.”

Piazza has been awarded multiple patents that protect this novel class of RAS inhibitors and co-founded a company, ADT Pharmaceuticals LLC, that, in partnership with Kestrel Therapeutics Inc., seeks to advance these novel RAS inhibitors to clinical trials.

“We are enthusiastic about the potential of these compounds to advance to clinical trials, but more research is needed to improve drug delivery to identify a suitable formulation for drug development,” Piazza said.

Piazza’s lab team first began its collaboration more than 20 years ago while at Southern Research and continued to work together while at the University of South Alabama Mitchell Cancer Institute.

“My team is what makes us successful in the drug discovery and development field, which is highly competitive and requires multidisciplinary collaboration,” Piazza said. “The team is comprised of scientists with diverse expertise in medicinal chemistry, cell and molecular biology, cancer biology and pharmacology with extensive experience in drug discovery and development, who share a common goal of curing cancer.”

Joining Piazza in his move to Auburn is his lab research team, including Dr. Yulia Maxuitenko, Dr. Adam Keeton, Dr. Xi Chen and Kristy Berry.

Piazza is a 1981 graduate of Dominican University in Chicago, earning a bachelor’s degree in biology and psychology. He then moved to Alabama and completed a doctorate degree in pharmacology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1985.

“My team is what makes us successful in the drug discovery and development field, which is highly competitive and requires multidisciplinary collaboration. The team is comprised of scientists with diverse expertise in medicinal chemistry, cell and molecular biology, cancer biology and pharmacology with extensive experience in drug discovery and development, who share a common goal of curing cancer.”

– Dr. Gary Piazza

Upon graduation, Piazza was a postdoctoral fellow at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia until 1987. He then served as a research assistant professor at Brown University from 1987-89.

Piazza entered the pharmaceutical industry with the Proctor and Gamble Company in Cincinnati as a scientist from 1989-94, and as research director with Cell Pathways, Inc., in Denver from 1994-2001. He then returned to academia as director of pharmacology at the Institute of Drug Development and professor at the Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio from 2001-03.

From 2003-11, Piazza was with Southern Research, where he served as the principal investigator and program director for a National Institutes of Health Molecular Libraries Screening Center and professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. From Birmingham, Piazza moved to his most recent appointments at the University of South Alabama Mitchell Cancer Institute in Mobile.

For Piazza, the environment at Auburn, along with its commitment to education and research, were motivating factors to move his cancer research and drug development program to The Plains.

“I believe that working in the Harrison College of Pharmacy has the potential to provide an outstanding environment to advance our RAS inhibitors to the clinic,” Piazza said. “It will also allow me to have a positive impact on others, especially by mentoring faculty and students. I am excited to join the Auburn Family, with its high standards for education and research and its entrepreneurial spirit.”

With extensive experience and expertise in the field, as well as a familiarity with peer institutions in the state, Piazza is interested in building cancer drug discovery and development capabilities at Auburn by establishing a new Cancer Research Center within the Harrison College of Pharmacy.

“For the past 20 years, I have worked with many talented scientists from UAB, South Alabama and Southern Research, and feel I know the drug discovery and development landscape in Alabama quite well,” Piazza said. “I hope to continue these local collaborations as well as with other investigators throughout the world and will seek to establish new collaborations with Auburn scientists and engineers.

“The diverse scientific and engineering expertise at Auburn could lead to tremendous synergy for Auburn to become a world-class leader in the field of drug discovery and development, not only for cancer, but other diseases.”

The Department of Drug Discovery and Development at the Harrison College of Pharmacy is a diverse and dynamic unit that focuses on several therapeutic areas, including diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, infectious diseases, neurodegenerative disorders and oncology. Investigators are generating lead molecules with therapeutic potential, elucidating mechanisms of disease, optimizing drug delivery strategies and studying drug disposition.

The department is comprised of more than 20 faculty members in the fields of pharmacology, drug delivery and medicinal chemistry with labs located in the Walker Building and the state-of-the-art Pharmacy Research Building.

Last updated: June 02, 2022