Rakovina Therapeutics Inc. announced the appointment of Prof. Artem Cherkasov to the Company?s Scientific Advisory Board. Prof. Cherkasov is a Professor in the Department of Urologic Sciences, Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia, and Senior Scientist at the Vancouver Prostate Centre and Canada Research Chair in Precision Cancer Drug Design. Prof. Cherkasov?s research interests include artificial intelligence (AI) and computer-aided drug discovery (CADD), structure-activity modelling, drug reprofiling, new cancer therapeutics discovery and development of novel CADD tools and applications.

Prof. Cherkasov has co-authored more than 200 research papers, 80 patent filings and several prominent book chapters. During his tenure at UBC, Prof. Cherkasov has licensed multiple drug candidates to major international venture capital funds and big pharma companies, including an androgen receptor inhibitor to Roche in 2015 for USD 142 million ? a record amount for Canadian academic institutions.

In response to the global COVID-19 pandemic, Prof. Cherkasov led a team employing a novel AI-based platform to process billions of compounds. Within a week they had identified the top 1,000 potential ligands, which they shared with the global scientific community.