Discovery and Role in Cancer
The first raf gene that was found was the oncogene v-raf. Normal (non-oncogenic) cellular homologs of v-raf were soon found to be conserved components of eukaryotic genomes, and it was shown that they could mutate and become oncogenes. A-Raf and B-Raf are two protein kinases with similar sequences to Raf-1. Mutations in B-Raf genes are found in several types of cancer. The Raf kinases are targets for anticancer drug development. There are several quantitative immunochemical methods available to detect Raf kinase inhibiting drugs.
Read more about this topic: C-Raf
Famous quotes containing the words discovery, role and/or cancer:
“We are all humiliated by the sudden discovery of a fact which has existed very comfortably and perhaps been staring at us in private while we have been making up our world entirely without it.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Where we come from in America no longer signifies—it’s where we go, and what we do when we get there, that tells us who we are.
The irony of the role of women in my business, and in so many other places, too, was that while we began by demanding that we be allowed to mimic the ways of men, we wound up knowing we would have to change those ways. Not only because those ways were not like ours, but because they simply did not work.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“The same people who tell us that smoking doesn’t cause cancer are now telling us that advertising cigarettes doesn’t cause smoking.”
—Ellen Goodman (b. 1941)