For decades, can­cer drug de­vel­op­ers have fo­cused on in­hi­bi­tion. Now, a GV-backed start­up is eye­ing ac­ti­va­tion

One of the back­bones of can­cer med­i­cine is shut­ting down key can­cer-dri­ving path­ways to kill tu­mor cells. But for years, re­searchers have no­ticed hy­per­ac­ti­va­tion of cer­tain sig­nals in these path­ways can lead to the same re­sult.

Re­searchers from Bill Sell­ers’ lab at the Broad In­sti­tute want­ed to fig­ure out how wide­ly hy­per­ac­ti­va­tion could be ap­plied to kill tu­mor cells. They ex­plored over-ac­ti­vat­ing three ma­jor can­cer-dri­ving path­ways across near­ly 500 cell lines, and they found that over-ac­ti­vat­ing cer­tain sig­nals in all three path­ways could keep tu­mor cells at bay, ac­cord­ing to a new study in Na­ture Ge­net­ics pub­lished Mon­day.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER