Trashing Cancer’s ‘Undruggable’ Proteins
February 24, 2026
New strategy grabs cancer-driving proteins, directs them to the cell’s disposal system
Northwestern researchers have developed protein-like polymers that capture cancer-driving proteins and send them to the cell’s waste-disposal system for destruction. In work led by Nathan Gianneschi, the HYDRAC platform successfully targeted MYC and KRAS—two notoriously “undruggable” proteins—halting tumor growth in early studies and opening new strategies for cancer therapy.