Opinion
Video
Dr. Daniel Petrylak discusses his work with PROTACs
Author(s):
"This is just another way that we can exploit the body's own natural system to take care of cancer," says Daniel P. Petrylak, MD.
In this video, Daniel P. Petrylak, MD, gives an overview of PROTACs. Petrylak is professor of medicine (medical oncology) and of urology at Yale School of Medicine and chief of genitourinary oncology at Yale Cancer Center, New Haven, Connecticut.
Transcription:
Our body has a system where we do away with old proteins. It's called the ubiquitin proteasome pathway. Proteins that are destined to be degraded or are too old are marked and then they're chewed up by this particular system. What a PROTAC does is it accelerates that process. It binds to the protein that's the target that we're trying to get rid of, and then it accelerates this pathway. The PROTAC also is recyclable, so for example, with the androgen receptor, 1 PROTAC can take out as many as 400 molecules recycled fairly frequently. So this is just another way that we can exploit the body's own natural system to take care of cancer.
This transcription was edited for clarity.
