Niall Buckley recently attended this year's Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on the Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms of Toxicity in New Hampshire thanks to a travel grant from the EUROTOX Congress.

Niall, a postdoc in the MacFarlane lab and AstraZeneca Hepatic Safety Team, presented his work on how CDK9 inhibitors can damage liver cells (hepatocytes) in a short talk and poster. Niall was recognised for his work, receiving the Outstanding Poster by a Postdoc prize.

Niall and his group discovered that these CDK9 inhibitors trigger a specific kind of cellular stress, known as nucleolar stress, revealing new cellular functions for the protein CDK9. This insight could help improve safety for patients receiving CDK9 inhibitors and guide future drug development.

CDK9 is a protein that is part of a complex of proteins that allows RNA polymerase II to move along the DNA in a process called transcription elongation to create messenger RNA. Correct transcription elongation allows gene expression that is necessary for cell growth and differentiation.

Dysfunction of the CDK9 pathway is a critical factor in the development of cancers including solid tumours and blood cancers (haematological malignancies). Drugs that inhibit CDK9 are a promising new class of cancer drugs, but liver cell damage can occur which limits their development for patients.

Speaking about the conference Niall said "I’m pleased to have had the opportunity to present my research in a short talk and poster at the GRS/GRC and be recognised for an outstanding poster by a postdoc. I particularly enjoyed learning about how industry and academia are working together to use new approach methodologies (NAMs), big data and AI to improve human relevant safety predictions and find alternatives to using animals in research."

Animal research in the UK is strictly regulated by a piece of regulation called 'Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, amended 2012'. Animals are only used in research where there is no alternative and everyone working with animals does so with the highest standards in animal care and welfare.