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Review

Nature Reviews Cancer 5, 876–885 (1 November 2005) | doi:10.1038/nrc1736

Promoting apoptosis as a strategy for cancer drug discovery

Stephen W. Fesik

Apoptosis is deregulated in many cancers, making it difficult to kill tumours. Drugs that restore the normal apoptotic pathways have the potential for effectively treating cancers that depend on aberrations of the apoptotic pathway to stay alive. Apoptosis targets that are currently being explored for cancer drug discovery include the tumour-necrosis factor (TNF)-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) receptors, the BCL2 family of anti-apoptotic proteins, inhibitor of apoptosis (IAP) proteins and MDM2.