A History of Cancer Research: The RAS Pathway.

Abstract

The RAS oncogene is a crucial driver of a number of cancers. The GTPase it encodes links growth factor receptors with signaling pathways that control cell proliferation. Activating mutations in RAS deregulate these pathways, promoting tumor progression. In this excerpt from his forthcoming book on the history of cancer research, Joe Lipsick looks back at the discovery of RAS and the subsequent work that revealed its mechanism of action-from the early work on rat sarcoma viruses to biochemical studies that revealed the role of GTP-GDP exchange and work that characterized downstream MAP kinase cascades in a variety of different organisms.