RAS Oncogenes: From Biology to Therapy

Remarkable discoveries regarding how RAS proteins function as key regulators of signal transduction and drivers of oncogenesis have emerged over the past three decades. Despite intensive efforts by the pharmaceutical industry, these findings have not been translated into clinically effective anti-RAS therapies, and RAS has been widely perceived as “undruggable.” However, recent genome-wide sequencing studies performed in search of new targets revealed that RAS and its key effectors (BRAF and PIK3CA) are the only oncogenes mutated beyond single digit frequencies in the cancers that comprise three of the top four causes of death in the U.S. (lung, colon, and pancreatic cancer). This has prompted renewed interest in targeting RAS, including the recent US National Cancer Institute announcement of a RAS “megaproject” to support such efforts. The primary focus of this AACR Special Conference will be to discuss both the exciting progress and the many still-unresolved issues that will affect how these discoveries can be leveraged. This conference will bring together academia and industry to assess the opportunities, challenges, and prospects of achieving the holy grail of cancer research, a therapeutic approach for the ~30 percent of human cancers that are RAS-mutant.