In 2008, that chemist, Kevan Shokat, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, decided to focus on the mutated gene. Different cancers tend to spring from different mutations in the KRAS gene and the protein it encodes. That strategy worked for so-called kinase inhibitors, which also block a protein created by gene mutations. With the KRAS mutation, the protein remains mostly in an “on” position, and cells are constantly forced to grow. The standard solution would be a drug that would hold the mutated protein in the “off” position.

Source: New York Times February 05, 2021 17:22 UTC