Sethera Therapeutics and Roswell Park receive award for breast cancer research

Sethera Therapeutics and the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center have been awarded the Fiscal Year 2025 Breast Cancer Research Program Breakthrough Award. The funding is administered by the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP).

The collaborative research project aims to address mutations in the p53 protein, which often loses its protective function in aggressive breast cancers. The research teams, led by Dr. Katerina Gurova of Roswell Park and CEO Dr. Karsten Eastman of Sethera Therapeutics, will utilize Sethera’s polymacrocyclic peptide (pMCP) discovery platform.

This platform, originally developed at the University of Utah with NIH support, is designed to engineer constrained peptide molecules. The goal is to identify molecules capable of binding to and stabilizing mutant p53 conformations, potentially restoring tumor-suppressive activity in ways that conventional drug modalities cannot achieve.