Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

ICS Travel Awards The c-MYC (MYC) oncogene plays an important role in tumourigenesis and is implicated in a majority of human cancers. However, despite the prevalence of MYC in cancer, the development of inhibitors that directly bind to and block MYC have failed. A promising alternative approach to develop MYC-targeted therapeutics involves targeting proteins that regulate the post-translational modifications on MYC, specifically those which are essential for MYC's oncogenic activity. Surprisingly, not much is known about MYC post-translational modifications. The only well-understood regulatory pathway involving post-translational modifications was first unveiled through the identification of T58A as a gain-of-function mutant. Through this approach, a novel regulatory pathway was unveiled and is now being exploited for the development of therapeutics targeting MYC activity. Remarkably, additional novel gain-of-function mutants have been unveiled, referred to as S71/S81A and MYC-4A, thus providing an opportunity to discover other critical regulatory pathways that regulate MYC.