Researchers have identified glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPX4) as a therapeutic target in abdominal aortic aneurysm, a vascular disease characterized by permanent and focal dilatation of the abdominal aorta, with a mortality rate of up to 85% in case of rupture.
Aberrant signaling by fibroblast growth factor receptors (FGFRs) drives tumor cell survival and proliferation in several cancers, making them promising therapeutic targets.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is characterized by persistent inflammation, primarily driven by CNS-resident immune cells like microglia, particularly in the progressive stages. The purinergic P2X7 receptor (P2X7R) is widely expressed on immune cells and is elevated on reactive astrocytes and microglia of MS lesions.
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disorder marked by joint inflammation, cartilage loss and bone damage. Although biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs have improved treatment outcomes, the disease remains incurable.
HER3 overexpression in solid tumors is tied to poor prognosis, concretely in breast and non-small-cell lung cancers, where treatment resistance often occurs upon using targeted therapy, highlighting the need for novel targeted therapies against HER3. Since its expression is much higher in tumor than normal cells, HER3 is a robust candidate for antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) therapy.
“I think we’ve come a long way in understanding the importance of this biology. We know it affects men and women, children and adults,” Paul Mischel told the audience during his plenary talk at the 2025 Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR 2025). “It’s very prevalent, it’s very devastating. It creates resistance. And we’ve learned some very fundamental rules about this biology that are driving it.”