Abstract

Deregulation of kinase activity has emerged as a major mechanism by which cancer cells evade normal physiological constraints on growth and survival. To date, 11 kinase inhibitors have received US Food and Drug Administration approval as cancer treatments, and there are considerable efforts to develop selective small molecule inhibitors for a host of other kinases that are implicated in cancer and other diseases. Herein we discuss the current challenges in the field, such as designing selective inhibitors and developing strategies to overcome resistance mutations. This Review provides a broad overview of some of the approaches currently used to discover and characterize new kinase inhibitors.

Author affiliations

1. Dana–Farber Cancer Institute, Department of Cancer Biology, Harvard Medical School, Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, 250 Longwood Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA.
2. Harvard Medical School, Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, 200 Longwood Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA.

Correspondence to: Email: Nathanael_Gray@dfci.harvard.edu

MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS

These links to content published by NPG are automatically generated.