Jay Bradner: Open-Source Cancer Drug Discovery

In this new TED talk Jay Bradner describes the development of a protein ligand drug aimed at BET bromodomains, a class of protein implicated in various forms of cancer. What is striking about Bradner’s work – and that of his colleagues – is that it was published, not patented or kept secret. Bradner describes how sharing the knowledge has permitted the rapid identification of other uses for the drug, e.g. against fatty liver tissue and leukemia cells.

[Embedded video]

The work was published in Bradner, et al. Nature, 2010, 468, 1067–1073, and is available for download here.