Scientists often use organoids – laboratory-grown human cell culture systems that closely mimic body organs – to gain deeper insights into cancer biology and understand how tumors respond to drugs. Researchers led by Yuan-Hung Lo, Ph.D., used organoids along with several CRISPR gene editing tools to study how cisplatin chemotherapy interacts with different genes in the human stomach. The screens revealed an unexpected link between cisplatin sensitivity and fucosylation, a process that adds sugar molecules to cells. The researchers identified the TAF6L gene as a key regulator...

KRAS is the most commonly mutated gene in cancer, but targeting the mutant protein is notoriously difficult because current therapies work only for certain KRAS mutations. This led researchers Kathleen McAndrews, Ph.D., Anirban Maitra, M.B.B.S., Raghu Kalluri, M.D., Ph.D., and Timothy Heffernan, Ph.D., to examine the efficacy of a first-in-class inhibitor called BI-2493. This pan-KRAS inhibitor can target the mutant protein in multiple cancer types, regardless of the specific mutation present. BI-2493 was developed as part of the...