‘Undruggable’ cancers slowed by targeting growth signals

As many as 50 percent of human cancer cases — across a wide variety of tissues — involve defects in a common cellular growth signaling pathway. These defects have so far defied most attempts to develop targeted therapies. Now researchers have identified a new strategy for potentially treating intractable cancers by decoupling the entire RAS/MAP Kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway from external growth signals.