Mark Bazett, director of preclinical development at Bold Therapeutics, didn’t have a problem when he learned that Furman Professor of Biology Pamela Hanson intended to use undergraduates to help with research on his company’s anti-cancer drug BOLD-100. Quite the opposite, in fact.

“Actually getting hands-on experience with a clinical product, I think that’s a really cool experience for these students,” Bazett said. “You don’t get that often.”

Bold Therapeutics Director of Preclinical Development Mark Bazett leads development of the anti-cancer drug BOLD-100.

Bold Therapeutics is a biotech company founded in 2018 to develop BOLD-100, which has shown promise for the treatment of gastric, pancreatic and colorectal cancers. Realizing that promise now requires gathering information from laboratory studies to shape clinical trials, which is where Hanson and her student team will come in.

In April, Hanson and collaborator Laura Stultz, a professor of chemistry at Birmingham-Southern College,  published a paper in Metallomics sharing their work using Saccharomyces cerevisiae – baker’s yeast – as a model for cancer cells to analyze some of the biological impacts of KP1019.

Like BOLD-100, KP1019 is a member of a new generation of metal antitumor drugs known as ruthenium complexes. After reading Hanson’s paper, Bazett realized her method would be ideal for his company’s pre-clinical studies.

“KP1019 is the precursor molecule to BOLD-100, which is the clinical candidate. Functionally, the actual active molecule is the same,” Bazett said. “Our thought was she might be interested in using the clinical candidate instead of the precursor molecule.”

Hanson was.

“It