Most cancer drugs work by jamming a protein's function. A newer approach removes the protein from the cell entirely, and researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have built a system for finding such drugs on purpose rather than by accident.
The team developed a platform for systematically discovering molecular glues, small molecules that force a disease-causing protein into contact with the cell's own disposal machinery. The work was published in Nature on August 5. Using the platform, the researchers identified the first molecular glue degrader that is metabolically activated, meaning it must be chemically altered inside the cell before it works.
