Getting down to the FACT: therapeutic targeting of MYC-dependent tumors

The MYC oncogene is thought to be involved in more than half of all human tumors and hence has great potential as a targeted therapy. However, despite the well appreciated role of oncogenes in the pathogenesis and maintenance of tumors, the ability to directly target them has proven elusive save a few examples, such as imatinib for chronic myelogenous leukemia. Recently, Carter et al. reported a way to circumvent the necessity to directly target MYC in neuroblastoma, a MYC-driven pediatric cancer, by identifying a downstream factor that was essential for the high expression of MYC-targeted genes in these tumors (1).