Kamyar is wearing a light blue shirt and is sitting on a balcony. He has grey hair and dark grey facial hair. He is wearing dark framed glasses.

Professor Kamyar Afarinkia

Professor of Drug Discovery
School of Medicine and Biosciences
kamyar.afarinkia@uwl.ac.uk

After completing my BSc in Chemistry, I was awarded and Overseas Research Scholarship and a BP Studentship to study for my PhD in Organic Chemistry under guidance of Professor Charles Rees CBE and Professor Sir John Cadogan at Imperial College, London.

I then moved to Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore USA) as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the laboratories of Prof Gary Posner, before returning to UK to work as a Senior Research Scientist for Glaxo R&D (now part of GSK). I then joined King's College London as a Lecturer in Medicinal and Synthetic Organic Chemistry, before moving to the Institute of Cancer Therapeutics, University of Bradford as the Head of Medicinal Chemistry. I joined the University of West London in 2022.
 

  • Qualifications

    • PhD in Organic Chemistry
    • BSc (1st class Hon) in Chemistry
    • Diploma of Imperial College (DIC)
    • Associate of the Royal College of Science (ARCS)

  • Memberships

    Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry & Chartered Chemist

Teaching

I have extensive teaching experience across Organic and Medicinal Chemistry, Pharmacology and Biomedical Sciences, having taught various modules covering topics as diverse as asymmetric synthesis to cancer biology. I have also led and taught on postgraduate taught (MSc and MRes) courses in Cancer Drug Discovery, Cancer Pharmacology and Drug Toxicology.

Research

See Professor Kamyar Afarinkia's publications list in the UWL Repository.

Role of Chemotactic Axes in Disease

Our laboratory has been interested in role of chemotactic axes, in particular chemokines CCL19 and CCL21 acting on receptor CCR7, CXCL12 acting on receptor CXCR4, and annexin A1 (ANXA1) acting on receptor FPR-1. Using a combination of rational design and vHTS on homology models of the receptors, and supported by our medicinal chemistry projects, we have developed small molecule antagonists for CXCR4 (ICT2522), CCR7 (ICT13069) and FPR-1 (ICT12035) and have pharmacologically assessed their potency and selectivity. We have also validated the role of these axes in disease. For example, we have shown that FPR-1 expression is elevated in the periphery of hypoxic/necrotic core of tumours; and that release of ANXA1 gives these FPR-1 expressing cells the ability to increase proliferation and resist therapy. For example, we have shown that treatment with ICT12035 increases lethality of both chemo and radiotherapy in vitro, and fully arrests the growth of glioblastoma in vivo. More recently, we have shown that under duress, tumour cells release CCL21 and CCL19 and that results in resistance of tumour cells to apoptosis.

Role of Energy Metabolism in Cancer

Using a combination of rational design and computational modelling, we have recently identified a novel class of inhibitors of Hexokinase-2 (HK-2) and have shown that they significantly reduce proliferation of tumour cells in a number of pharmacological assays.

New pharmacological assays

We have developed an Agarose Spot Assay for determination of chemotactic aptitude of cells towards multiple chemoattractant simultaneously.

Synthetic Chemistry

We have developed and used novel synthetic methodologies including the Diels-Alder cycloaddition of 2(H)pyran-2-one, 2(H)-pyridin-2-one and 1,4-oxazin-2-ones for the synthesis of medicinally relevant natural products and their derivatives derivatives.
 

  • Research and publications

    Publications

    Mohamed, Y.; Santucci, G.; Afarinkia, K. “tert-Butyl(2-oxo-2H-pyran-5-yl)carbamate as the first chameleon diene with an electron donating substituent” Molecules, 2022, in press.

    Eldehna, W. M.; Taghour, M. S.; Nocentini, A.; Elbadawi, M. M.; Dahab, M. A.; Al-Rashood, S. T.; Elkaeed, E B.; Abdelrahman, M. A.; Elimam, D. M.; Afarinkia, K.; Supuran C. T. “Discovery of 2,4-thiazolidinedione-tethered coumarins as novel selective inhibitors for carbonic anhydrase IX and XII isoforms” Journal of Enzyme Inhibition and Medicinal Chemistry, 2022, 37(1), 531-541.

    Basheer, H.A.; Elsalem, L.; Salem, A.; Hunter, K.; Afarinkia, K. “The Role of Glutaminases in the Head and Neck Cancers” Current Cancer Drug Targets, 2022, 22(2), 169-179.

    Liu, X.L.; Aghamohammadi, A.; Afarinkia, K.; Abraham, R.J.; Acree, W.E.; Abraham, M.H. “Descriptors for Edaravone; studies on its structure, and prediction of properties” Journal of Molecular Liquids, 2020, 332, Article number: 115821.

    Salem, A.; Alotaibi, M.; Mroueh, R.; Basheer, H.A.; Afarinkia. K. “CCR7 as a therapeutic target in Cancer” Biochimica et Biophysica Acta-Reviews on Cancer, 2020, 1875, Article number: 188499.

    Ahmet, D.S.; Basheer, H.A.; Salem, A.; Lu, D.; Aghamohammadi, A.; Weyerhäuser, P.; Bordiga, A.; Almeniawi, J.; Rashid, S.; Cooper, P.A.; Shnyder, S.D.; Vinader, V.; Afarinkia. K. “Application of small molecule FPR1 antagonists in the treatment of cancers” Scientific Reports, 2020, 10, Article number: 17249.

    Abraham, M.H.; Abraham, R.J.; Aghamohammadi, A.; Afarinkia, K.; Liu, X.L. “The assessment of intramolecular hydrogen bonding in ortho-substituted anilines by an NMR method” Journal of Molecular Liquids, 2020, 315, Article number: 113730.

    Lomba-Eraso, L.; Afarinkia. K.; Vinader, V. “A new route to tricyclane sesquiterpenoids: Total Synthesis of α-Ekasantalic acid” Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry, 2019, 17, 4456-4459.

    Anees. M; Nayak, S.; Afarinkia. K.; Vinader, V. “Control of the Stereochemistry of C14 Hydroxyl During the Total Synthesis of Withanolide E and Physachenolide C” RSC Advances, 2018, 8, 39691-39695.

    Basheer, H.A.; Pakanavicius, E.; Cooper, P.A.; Shnyder, S. D.; Martin, L.; Hunter, K. D.; Vinader, V. Afarinkia, K. “Hypoxia modulates CCR7 expression in head and neck cancers” Oral Oncology, 2018, 80, 64-73.

    Ahmed M.; Basheer, H.A.; Ayuso, J. M.; Ahmet, D.; Mazzini, M.; Patel, R.; Shnyder, S. D.; Vinader, V. Afarinkia, K. “Agarose spot as a comparative method for in situ analysis of simultaneous chemotactic responses to multiple chemokines” Scientific Reports, 2017, 7, Article number: 1075.

  • Research degree supervision

    Our laboratory is highly multidisciplinary with research focus in cancer biology, development of new pharmacological assays, computational modelling, and medicinal chemistry. I have supervised 26 PhD students to completion and currently have a group of 4 PhD students.

Courses taught on