Good news: a new treatment for pancreatic cancer

[Sparkly]

NY Times reports today on a new approach to pancreatic cancer that can also treat some forms of lung and colon cancer. Like nearly all cancer treatments today, it's not a cure but it is the first of its kind, so it offers promise for time that wasn't there before.

Scientists say the drug could turn out to be cancer’s equivalent of breaking the four-minute mile. “It’s the beginning, not the end,” said Dr. Elizabeth Jaffee, a pancreatic cancer researcher at Johns Hopkins University.

The difficulty has to do with targeting a specific molecule of a gene's protein for the drug to bind to, if I understand that correctly. In these cancers, the target is a smooth-surfaced protein in the cells called KRAS that's described it as a “greasy ball.”

A scientist at the University of California, San Francisco - Kevan Shokat - found a crack in the KRAS protein and a molecule that could wedge into it. Then a Harvard scientist, Greg Verdine, created a molecule (!) to disable KRAS.

At the company he started called Warp Drive Bio, Dr. Verdine and his team developed a strategy to stick a drug onto another protein in the cell, cyclophilin, and then use the larger combined surface to wrap around KRAS and shut it down.Together, Dr. Shokat and Dr. Verdine’s research showed that the greasy ball could be conquered after all. In 2018, Revolution, a small company that had been focused on drugs to fight infections, acquired Warp Drive and expanded on its work.

Amazing.

Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/health/pancreatic-cancer-daraxonrasib-kras.html
(Sorry there's a paywall!)