Drugging the 'undruggable' cancer targets

Abstract

The term 'undruggable' was coined to describe proteins that could not be targeted pharmacologically. However, progress is being made to 'drug' many of these targets, and therefore more appropriate terms might be 'difficult to drug' or 'yet to be drugged'. Many desirable targets in cancer fall into this category, including the RAS and MYC oncogenes, and pharmacologically targeting these intractable proteins is now a key challenge in cancer research that requires innovation and the development of new technologies. In this Viewpoint article, we asked four scientists working in this field for their opinions on the most crucial advances, as well as the challenges and what the future holds for this important area of research.