Cancer therapies that target specific molecular defects arising from mutations in tumor cells are currently the focus of much anticancer drug development. However, due to the absence of good targets and to the genetic variation in tumors, platinum-based chemotherapies are still the mainstay in the treatment of many cancers, including those that have a mutated version of the tumor suppressor gene p53. P53 is mutated in a majority of cancers, which enables tumor cells to develop resistance to platinum-based chemotherapies. But these defects can still be exploited to selectively target tumor cells by targeting a second gene to take down the tumor cell, leveraging a phenomenon known as synthetic lethality.
Focused on understanding and targeting cell signaling in cancer, the laboratory of Michael Yaffe, the David H. Koch Professor Science and director of the MIT Center for Precision Cancer Medicine, seeks to identify pathways that are synthetic lethal with each other, and to develop...
learn more
