{"id":6641,"date":"2012-02-17T15:10:36","date_gmt":"2012-02-17T20:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/busm-news\/?p=2090"},"modified":"2012-02-17T15:10:36","modified_gmt":"2012-02-17T20:10:36","slug":"identifying-an-achilles-heel-in-colon-cancer-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/2012\/02\/17\/identifying-an-achilles-heel-in-colon-cancer-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Identifying an \u201cAchilles\u2019 Heel\u201d in Colon Cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over 1 million cases of colon cancer are diagnosed worldwide each year resulting in approximately 600,000 deaths annually. Disease-causing mutations in the <em>KRAS<\/em> gene are found in over half of these cases.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2091\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2091\" style=\"width: 260px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"\/camed\/files\/2012\/02\/singh-web1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2091\" title=\"singh web\" src=\"\/camed\/files\/2012\/02\/singh-web1.jpg\" alt=\"Singh\" width=\"250\" height=\"267\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2091\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Anurag Singh<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In the United States, colon cancer patients are routinely genotyped for <em>KRAS<\/em> gene mutations and those with mutations are excluded from receiving novel \u201ctargeted\u201d therapeutic agents due to a lack of clinical benefit. Thus, patients with <em>KRAS<\/em> gene mutations are faced with very limited therapeutic options and are subsequently given very poor clinical prognoses.<\/p>\n<p>A recent study published in the Feb.17 issue of <em>Cell<\/em> has sought to tackle this problem head-on. The study\u2019s lead author is BUSM Assistant Professor, Pharmacology and Medicine, Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology, Anurag Singh, PhD working closely with Daniel Haber MD, PhD and Jeff Settleman PhD at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center. The researchers identified a network of genes that are hyper-activated in <em>KRAS<\/em> mutant colon cancers. Within this network is a gene called<em> MAP3K7 <\/em>or TAK1, which they showed plays a very critical role in promoting colon cancer disease progression. Pharmacological inhibition of TAK1 results in strong killing of affected tumor cells, with minimal effects in \u201cnormal\u201d non-mutated cells.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese findings raise the possibility that anti-TAK1 agents could provide the basis for \u201cpersonalized\u201d medicine in patients with highly aggressive <em>KRAS<\/em> mutant colon cancers,\u201d said Singh. Efforts are now underway to identify clinically efficacious TAK1 inhibitors.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over 1 million cases of colon cancer are diagnosed worldwide each year resulting in approximately 600,000 deaths annually. Disease-causing mutations in the KRAS gene are found in over half of these cases. In the United States, colon cancer patients are routinely genotyped for KRAS gene mutations and those with mutations are excluded from receiving novel [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":903,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6641"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/903"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6641\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/camed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}