Kosan Biosciences Incorporated has been awarded a two-year, $400,000 Phase I Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) grant from the National Cancer Institute. The company will apply its technology to develop an efficient means of producing the polyketide laulimalide, a potential anti-cancer agent.

Laulimalide (also known as fijianolide B) has demonstrated the ability to inhibit cancer cells by the same mechanism as paclitaxel (the active ingredient in Taxol) and the epothilones, while also exhibiting activity against paclitaxel-resistant tumors. Laulimalide was initially isolated from a deep-sea marine sponge, but the amounts obtainable from that source are limited, making the material extremely scarce. Further, the chemical synthesis of the compound is extremely complicated and expensive.

"Our aim is to clone the genes for laulimalide biosynthesis from a marine source and then express those genes in one of Kosan's high-production bacterial hosts," said C. Richard Hutchinson, Kosan's Vice President of New Technologies and the grant's principal investigator. "Our objectives are to produce ample material for drug development and, through Kosan's platform technologies, enable the discovery of potentially valuable laulimalide analogs."