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Hunting ALK to feed targeted cancer therapy

Nature Medicine volume 17, pages 290–291 (2011)Cite this article

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Neuroblastoma is a fatal childhood cancer, but lack of knowledge about the underlying causative genes has hampered the development of effective therapies. The identification of anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) mutations as drivers of neuroblastoma has indicated that targeted therapy with ALK inhibitors might be a valuable strategy in the fight against this lethal cancer.

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Figure 1: The ALK receptor kinase: its domains, pathways, mutations and inhibitors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Anton Wellstein and Jeffrey A. Toretsky are at Georgetown University, Lombardi Cancer Center, Washington, DC, USA.,

    Anton Wellstein & Jeffrey A Toretsky

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  1. Anton Wellstein
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  2. Jeffrey A Toretsky
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Correspondence to Jeffrey A Toretsky.

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Competing interests

A.W. is named as an inventor on Georgetown University patents that are related to the ALK receptor.

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Wellstein, A., Toretsky, J. Hunting ALK to feed targeted cancer therapy. Nat Med 17, 290–291 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm0311-290

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