Dr. Art Cherkasov

Dr. Cherkasov

Ph.D. Kazan University, Russia, 1996
Sc. D. Russian Academy of Sciences, 2001
Post-doctoral Fellow – Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
Post-doctoral Fellow – University of Saskatchewan
Research Associate, BC Cancer Research Centre, 2001

Team: 
Clinical and Research Scientists
Executive Team
Positions: 

Senior Research Scientist, Vancouver Prostate Centre
Head, Precision Cancer Drug Design, Vancouver Prostate Centre
Professor, Dept. of Urologic Sciences, University of British Columbia
Adjunct Professor, Computer Science, Simon Fraser University Canada Research Chair in Precision Cancer Drug Design

 

Dr. Artem 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. His research interests include computer-aided drug discovery (CADD), structure-activity modeling, drug reprofiling, new cancer therapeutics discovery and development of novel CADD tools and applications.

Dr. Cherkasov has co-authored more than 200 research papers, 80 patent filings and several prominent book chapters. During his tenure at UBC, Dr. Cherkasov has been a principal applicant or co-applicant on a number of successful grants totalling over 70M dollars, and has licenced 6 drug candidates to big pharma companies (AZ, Roche), major international venture funds (5AM) and spin-off companies.

Notably, the androgen receptor inhibitor developed by Drs. Cherkasov and Rennie was licensed by Roche in 2015 for 142M USD – a record amount for Canadian academic institutions.

In 2017, Dr. Cherkasov led a group of 10 prominent PIs in a successful 24M dollar application to the Canadian Foundation of Innovation to create a complete ADDUCT (Accelerated Drug Discovery Using Clinical Translation) infrastructure at UBC. The grants completes the UBC cross-discipline drug discovery platform with the latest cryo-EM technology, enhanced protein production and purification capabilities and substantial computational infrastructure, providing cutting-edge CADD and AI support for personalized drug discovery.

In response to the global COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Cherkasov's team utilized their novel AI-based platform, Deep Docking (DD), with the recently published structure of the COVID-19 Mpro target, applying DD to process 1.3 billion compounds; within a week, they had identified the top 1000 potential ligands which they shared with the scientific community. Continued work narrowed this to a shortlist of the top 100 candidate protease inhibitors that could lead to a treatment. The next step is to purchase samples of the top 100 candidates and work with collaborators to screen them in a timely fashion, in order to accelerate the top candidates through the VPC's established drug development pipeline.

Dr. Cherkasov holds a number of other research grants from NSERC, CIHR, Prostate Cancer Canada, Prostate Cancer Foundation BC, US Department of Defense, Canadian Cancer Research Institute, and NIH among others. In January 2022, he was appointed Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Precision Cancer Drug Design.

 

Last updated January 12, 2022

A World Class Centre

The Vancouver Prostate Centre (VPC) has a track record of success that has earned it a reputation as one of the world’s most respected cancer facilities. It is a National Centre of Excellence and a designated Centre of Excellence for Commercialization and Research.

Events

Terry Fox Run fundraiser: September 19th, 2023

The 43nd Annual Terry Fox Run is taking place on Sunday September 19, 2023. If you are able, please consider joining and/or donating to our team (tax receipts issued), raising funds for the Terry Fox Foundation's ground-breaking cancer research

Pars for Prostate fundraiser: September 21, 2023

The Second Annual Pars for Prostate golf fundraiser in support of Prostate Cancer Foundation BC takes place September 21, 2022 at Westwood Plateau Golf Course. Join today to take part in this best ball, shotgun style tournament. Skilled holes, putting contest, draw prizes and more. For information and to register please click here.

Employment

Work at the Vancouver Prostate Centre

Thursday, January 18, 2024

Dr Artem Cherkasov receives world-wide challenge in drug discovery

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Dr. Somasekharan has been granted a $1.12 million USD from the DOD Award