A blood signal that could tell doctors which leukemia patients a shelved drug will actually help

Triciribine is a cancer compound that reached clinical trials but helped too few patients to shine — the puzzle was that nobody could tell in advance whose cancer it would work on. At Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, Xuekang Qi, Rozbeh Jafari and colleagues studied leukemia cells in depth, including cells from 10 patients, and found the missing clue: the compound only switches on inside cells that carry enough of an enzyme called ADK, and cells rich in ADK responded far more strongly. That makes ADK a candidate signpost — a simple measurement that could one day match the drug to the patients most likely to benefit, instead of trying it on everyone and hoping. The work is published in npj Precision Oncology, and the team is clear-eyed: it must still be proven in patients.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: tech innovation