Timeline of the Birth of a Targeted Therapy

1953: James Watson and Francis Crick famously elucidate the structure of the DNA double helix.
1956: Swedish geneticists decisively prove that humans have 46 chromosomes, not 48.
1959: Paris biologist Jerome Lejeune links Down syndrome to an extra copy of the 21st chromosome.
1960: Peter Nowell and David Hungerford report an abnormally small chromosome in cells taken from patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). The dwarfed version of chromosome 22 will later be dubbed the Philadelphia chromosome.
1960s: Extra or missing chromosomes are linked to a number of life-threatening birth defects and lesser-known genetic disorders like Turner syndrome and Klinefelter syndrome.
1972: Janet Rowley discovers the 9;22 translocation: a broken piece of chromosome 22 attached to chromosome 9.
1980s: Researchers investigate the biochemical pathway, BCR-ABL, that is created by the 9;22 translocation.
Early 1990s: Brian Druker and his colleagues begin to search for a chemical compound that will target and disrupt the BCR-ABL pathway.
Late 1990s: A phase I clinical trial of Gleevac (imatinib) gets underway; nearly all of the 54 CML patients enrolled in the trial respond to the drug.
MAY 2001	Less than three years after the beginning of the first clinical study and in near record time, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves Gleevec.

Icons courtesy of the Noun Project

12/05/2011

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