Challenges in validating candidate therapeutic targets in cancer

Abstract

More than 30 published articles have suggested that a protein kinase called MELK is an attractive therapeutic target in human cancer, but three recent reports describe compelling evidence that it is not. These reports highlight the caveats associated with some of the research tools that are commonly used to validate candidate therapeutic targets in cancer research.

Keywords

• reproducibility
• melk
• protein kinase
• scientific publishing
• replication