Research projects

KnowTransfer actively invests in research projects

Project 2604

Development of a platform for sreening of novel natural purified molecules with potential use as anticarcinogenic agents.

KNOWTRANSFER, a technology-based startup specialising in early-stage drug discovery. Our aim is developing an innovative, integrated technological platform designed to identify, prioritise and functionally validate small-molecule inhibitors targeting Histone Acetyltransferase 1 (HAT1). HAT1 is an emerging epigenetic oncogene strongly associated with tumour progression, therapeutic resistance and poor clinical prognosis across multiple cancers. Despite its immense therapeutic relevance, the pharmacological exploitation of HAT1 remains largely unchartered due to a severe shortage of specific inhibitors and fragmented discovery methodologies.

We will addresses this critical technological gap by replacing conventional, disjointed pipelines with an integrated, multi-modular workflow. The platform seamlessly unites three core analytical tiers:

In Silico Molecular Modelling: Utilizing structural analysis and molecular docking to screen and rank bioactive polyphenolic families (such as chalcones, stilbenes and arylbenzofurans), drastically reducing experimental overheads.
In Vitro Functional Validation: Evaluating the antitumour and antiproliferative efficacy of prioritised compounds across complementary solid and haematological tumour models (PC3 prostate adenocarcinoma and K562 chronic myeloid leukaemia cell lines).
Epigenetic Mechanistic Verification: Confirming a direct, targeted mechanism of action by analyzing specific biomarkers, notably histone H4 acetylation and HAT1 expression levels. This critical tier successfully filters out compounds causing non-specific cytotoxicity.

By aligning computational prediction with robust experimental evidence, in this project we significantly de-risk early-stage drug discovery and increases the industrial value of the generated assets.

Operating under a highly capital-efficient, asset-based business model, KNOWTRANSFER avoids the high-CAPEX demands of advanced clinical phases. Instead, the company captures value early within the biotechnology ecosystem by securing robust intellectual property and transferring highly validated, patentable assets—such as prioritised compounds, optimised derivatives and novel therapeutic uses—to pharmaceutical and biotech partners for advanced preclinical development. Ultimately, while initially optimised for HAT1, Our scalable architecture is fully transferable to other emerging epigenetic targets, establishing a continuous pipeline for future oncology research.

Key Highlights:

Target Disease Area: Epigenetic Oncology (specifically targeting the emerging HAT1 enzyme).
Core Innovation: A unified platform connecting in silico molecular docking, in vitro oncology assays and precise epigenetic mechanistic validation to eliminate non-specific cytotoxicity screening errors.
Chemical Focus: Rationale screening of bio-produced, high-purity polyphenols, chalcones and stilbenes.
Business Strategy: Asset-based, capital-efficient model focused on early-stage intellectual property (IP) generation, technology transfer and commercial licensing.

Our publications in peer-reviewed journals:

1. González-González, M., Bartolome, R., Jara-Acevedo, R., Casado-Vela, J., Dasilva, N., Matarraz, S., García, J., Alcazar, J.A., Sayagues, J.M., Orfao, A. (2014). Evaluation of homo-and hetero-functionally activated glass surfaces for optimized antibody arrays. Analytical Biochemistry, 450:37-45. Academic Press.

2. Casado-Vela, J., Fuentes, M., Franco-Zorrilla, J.M. (2014). Screening of protein–protein and protein–DNA interactions using microarrays: Applications in biomedicine. Advances in protein chemistry and structural biology, 95:231-281. Elsevier.

3. Anitua, E., Prado, R., Azkargorta, M., Rodriguez‐Suárez, E., Iloro, I., Casado‐Vela, J., Elortza, F., Orive, G. (2015). High‐throughput proteomic characterization of plasma rich in growth factors (PRGF–Endoret)‐derived fibrin clot interactome. Journal of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, 9(11):E1-E12. Wiley Online Library.

4. Larriba, M.J., Casado-Vela, J., Pendas-Franco, N., Pena, R., Garcia de Herreros, A., Berciano, M.T., Lafarga, M., Casal, J.I., Munoz, A. (2010). Novel snail1 target proteins in human colon cancer identified by proteomic analysis. PloS one, 5(4):e10221. Public Library of Science.

5. Casado-Vela, J., Cebrián, A., Gómez del Pulgar, M.T., Lacal, J.C. (2011). Approaches for the study of cancer: towards the integration of genomics, proteomics and metabolomics. Clinical and Translational Oncology, 13(9):617-628. Springer Milan.

6. Díez, P., Dégano, R.M., Ibarrola, N., Casado‐Vela, J., Fuentes, M. (2015). Genomics and proteomics for biomarker validation. Biomarker Validation, 231-242. Wiley Online Library.

7. Casado-Vela, J., Rodriguez-Suarez, E., Iloro, I., Ametzazurra, A., Alkorta, N., García-Velasco, J.A., Matorras, R., Prieto, B., González, S., Nagore, D., et al. (2009). Comprehensive proteomic analysis of human endometrial fluid aspirate. Journal of proteome research, 8(10):4622-4632. ACS Publications.

8. Guillou, E., Ibarra, A., Coulon, V., Casado-Vela, J., Rico, D., Casal, I., Schwob, E., Losada, A., Méndez, J. (2010). Cohesin organizes chromatin loops at DNA replication factories. Genes & development, 24(24):2812-2822. Cold Spring Harbor Lab.

9. Lopitz-Otsoa, F., Rodriguez-Suarez, E., Aillet, F., Casado-Vela, J., Lang, V., Matthiesen, R., Elortza, F., Rodriguez, M.S. (2012). Integrative analysis of the ubiquitin proteome isolated using Tandem Ubiquitin Binding Entities (TUBEs). Journal of proteomics, 75(10):2998-3014. Elsevier.

10. Fuentes, M., Díez, P., Casado-Vela, J. (2016). Nanotechnology in the fabrication of protein microarrays. Microarray Technology: Methods and Applications, 197-208. Springer New York.

11. Gallardo-Vara, E., Ruiz-Llorente, L., Casado-Vela, J., Ruiz-Rodríguez, M.J., López-Andrés, N., Pattnaik, A.K., Quintanilla, M., Bernabeu, C. (2019). Endoglin protein interactome profiling identifies TRIM21 and galectin-3 as new binding partners. Cells, 8(9):1082. MDPI.

12. Casado‐Vela, J., Martínez‐Esteso, M.J., Rodriguez, E., Borrás, E., Elortza, F., Bru‐Martínez, R. (2010). iTRAQ‐based quantitative analysis of protein mixtures with large fold change and dynamic range. Proteomics, 10(2):343-347. Wiley Online Library.

13. Martínez-Esteso, M.J., Casado-Vela, J., Sellés-Marchart, S., Pedreño, M.A., Bru-Martínez, R. (2013). Differential plant proteome analysis by isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantitation (iTRAQ). Plant Proteomics: Methods and Protocols, 155-169. Humana Press.

14. Casado‐Vela, J., Cebrian, A., Gómez del Pulgar, M.T., Sánchez‐López, E., Vilaseca, M., Menchen, L., Diema, C., Sellés‐Marchart, S., Martínez‐Esteso, M.J., Yubero, N., et al. (2011). Lights and shadows of proteomic technologies for the study of protein species including isoforms, splicing variants and protein post‐translational modifications. Proteomics, 11(4):590-603. WILEY‐VCH Verlag.

15. Casado‐Vela, J., Lacal, J.C., Elortza, F. (2013). Protein chimerism: Novel source of protein diversity in humans adds complexity to bottom‐up proteomics. Proteomics, 13(1):5-11. Wiley Online Library.

16. Díez, P., González-González, M., Lourido, L., Dégano, R.M., Ibarrola, N., Casado-Vela, J., LaBaer, J., Fuentes, M. (2015). NAPPA as a real new method for protein microarray generation. Microarrays, 4(2):214-227. MDPI.

17. Casado-Vela, J., Del Pulgar, T.G., Cebrian, A., Alvarez-Ayerza, N., Lacal, J.C. (2011). Human urine proteomics: building a list of human urine cancer biomarkers. Expert Review of Proteomics, 8(3):347-360. Taylor & Francis.

18. Casagolda, D., del Valle-Pérez, B., Valls, G., Lugilde, E., Vinyoles, M., Casado-Vela, J., Solanas, G., Batlle, E., Reynolds, A.B., Casal, J.I. (2010). A p120-catenin–CK1ε complex regulates Wnt signaling. Journal of cell science, 123(15):2621-2631. Company of Biologists.

19. Díez, P., Jara-Acevedo, R., Gonzalez-Gonzalez, M., Casado-Vela, J., Dasilva, N., Lecrevisse, Q., Bartolomé, R., Claros, J.C., González, A., Lopez, R., et al. (2015). High-throughput phage-display screening in array format. Enzyme and microbial technology, 79:34-41. Elsevier.

20. Díez, P., Dasilva, N., González-González, M., Matarraz, S., Casado-Vela, J., Orfao, A., Fuentes, M. (2012). Data analysis strategies for protein microarrays. Microarrays, 1(2):64-83. MDPI.

21. Casado-Vela, J., Matthiesen, R., Sellés, S., Naranjo, J.R. (2013). Protein-protein interactions: Gene acronym redundancies and current limitations precluding automated data integration. Proteomes, 1(1):3-24. Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute.

22. Navarro-Muñoz, M., Ibernon, M., Bonet, J., Pérez, V., Pastor, M.C., Bayés, B., Casado-Vela, J., Navarro, M., Ara, J., Espinal, A., et al. (2012). Uromodulin and α1-antitrypsin urinary peptide analysis to differentiate glomerular kidney diseases. Kidney and Blood Pressure Research, 35(5):314-325. S. Karger AG.

23. Casado‐Vela, J., Ruiz, E.J., Nebreda, A.R., Casal, J.I. (2007). A combination of neutral loss and targeted product ion scanning with two enzymatic digestions facilitates the comprehensive mapping of phosphorylation sites. Proteomics, 7(15):2522-2529. Wiley Online Library.

24. Albiñana, V., Gallardo-Vara, E., Casado-Vela, J., Recio-Poveda, L., Botella, L.M., Cuesta, A.M. (2022). Propranolol: a “pick and roll” team player in benign tumors and cancer therapies. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 11(15):4539. MDPI.

25. Naranjo, J.R., Zhang, H., Villar, D., González, P., Dopazo, X.M., Morón-Oset, J., Higueras, E., Oliveros, J.C., Arrabal, M.D., Prieto, A., et al. (2016). Activating transcription factor 6 derepression mediates neuroprotection in Huntington disease. The Journal of clinical investigation, 126(2):627-638. American Society for Clinical Investigation.

26. Errasti Díaz, S., Peñalva, M., Recio-Poveda, L., Vilches, S., Casado-Vela, J., Pérez Pérez, J., Botella, L.M., Albiñana, V., Cuesta, A.M. (2022). A Novel Splicing Mutation in the ACVRL1/ALK1 Gene as a Cause of HHT2. Journal of clinical medicine, 11(11):3053. MDPI.

27. Cuesta, A.M., Gallardo-Vara, E., Casado-Vela, J., Recio-Poveda, L., Botella, L.-M., Albiñana, V. (2022). The role of propranolol as a repurposed drug in rare vascular diseases. International journal of molecular sciences, 23(8):4217. MDPI.

28. Casado-Vela, J., Gonzalez-Gonzalez, M., Matarraz, S., Martínez-Esteso, M.J., Vilella, M., Sayagués, J.M., Fuentes, M., Carlos Lacal, J. (2013). Protein arrays: recent achievements and their application to study the human proteome. Current Proteomics, 10(2):83-97. Bentham Science Publishers.

29. Casado-Vela, J., Martínez-Torrecuadrada, J.L., Casal, J.I. (2009). Differential phosphorylation patterns between the Cyclin-A2/CDK2 complex and their monomers. Protein expression and purification, 66(1):15-21. Elsevier.