kinase

AKT is a central survival kinase downstream of PI3K, blocked by capivasertib in breast and now prostate cancer.

ALK is a gene fusion driver in about 4 to 5% of non-small-cell lung cancers that responds to a succession of ALK inhibitor pills. Lorlatinib kept about 60% of patients progression-free at five years, alectinib is approved after surgery, and neladalkib targets compound resistance mutations.

The fusion that defines chronic myeloid leukaemia and a quarter of adult acute lymphoblastic leukaemia; the first cancer driver ever switched off by a pill.

BRAF is a signalling kinase mutated in half of melanomas; blocking it with two drugs at once became a template for targeted therapy.

The signalling enzyme that B-cell cancers use to survive. Blocking it turned chronic lymphocytic leukaemia into a disease controlled by a daily pill.

CDK4/6 is the engine that pushes a cell to copy its DNA. Blocking it alongside hormone therapy roughly doubled the time hormone-driven breast cancer stays controlled.

A growth receptor that is mutated in some lung cancers and overproduced in others; the first great success of targeted pills.

FGFR2 is a growth receptor fused in bile-duct cancer and overproduced in gastric cancer.

FLT3 is a kinase mutated in about a third of acute myeloid leukaemias, where adding an inhibitor to chemotherapy improves survival.

KIT mutation is the driver behind most gastrointestinal stromal tumours, and the reason imatinib turned a sarcoma with a median survival of about a year into a chronic disease.

MEK is the relay in the growth-signal chain that sits just below RAS and RAF. Blocking it starves BRAF- and RAS-driven tumours of their go signal.

A receptor that is either mutated in some lung cancers or amplified as an escape route when other lung cancer drugs fail.

mTOR is the cell's master growth controller, deciding whether to build proteins and divide. Rapamycin-like drugs clamp it down in kidney, breast and neuroendocrine cancers and in rare tumours driven by TSC gene loss.

PIK3CA is the most commonly mutated gene in hormone-driven breast cancer. Drugs against it work, but hitting it cleanly without raising blood sugar took years.

RET is a kinase altered in thyroid cancer and a small slice of lung cancer, treatable with one selective pill regardless of where the tumour is.

A gene fusion in about 1-2% of lung cancers that responds for years to targeted pills, now in their third generation.