National Cancer Institute (NCI) shared on LinkedIn:
“‘Before joining NCI, I was an oncologist and scientist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, studying how to kill cancer cells and translate those discoveries into better treatments for patients. Like many scientists, I heard that the RAS protein was ‘undruggable.’
Researchers have long understood the importance of RAS in cancer. RAS signaling is essential for cell and tissue growth, and many cancers rely on this pathway for their malignant behavior. But knowing RAS was important and knowing how to target it were two very different things. Some scientific challenges are simply too big, too slow, and too risky for any one lab or group to face by themselves. RAS is one of them.
That is why NCI launched the RAS Initiative at our Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research in 2013. The idea was to bring together government, academia, and industry, provide shared tools and resources, and build a community around a problem no one group could solve alone. That community extends beyond scientists moving research forward. It includes clinicians, advocates, patients, families, and partners across the cancer community who help shape what progress needs to look like.
I was reminded of how far that effort has come at the recent 6th RAS Initiative Symposium, where researchers from across the field recognized more than a decade of shared science that has led to three FDA-approved RAS inhibitors, including Revolution Medicines’ recently approved daraxonrasib, which is offering long-overdue hope to patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer.
Our latest Your NCI video, ‘Your National Cancer Institute: Taking on the RAS Challenge,’ tells the story of how the RAS Initiative, as well as research by NCI funded extramural investigators, sped progress in targeting RAS in cancer.
The drug at the end is what people see. What they often do not see are the people and partnerships behind it: researchers pursuing ideas, patients and advocates keeping the work focused on what matters, the community sharing tools and data, and sustained public and federal investment giving the work time and support.
‘Our job now is to continue building on this community momentum – to target more forms of RAS, overcome resistance, and bring these breakthroughs to the patients who need them.’
– said Anthony Letai, Director of the National Cancer Institute.”
This also can be interesting:
Daraxonrasib Receives Positive CHMP Opinion for Previously Treated Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer
