BioCentury
ARTICLE | Emerging Company Profile

Signase: Src revival

September 9, 2002 7:00 AM UTC

The current popularity of kinases seems to have vindicated Andy Warhol's dictum that just about everyone gets to enjoy 15 minutes of fame. Almost every new addition to the kinase superfamily is touted as the target that will create the next blockbuster anti-cancer drug. Though focused on cancer, Signase Inc. is bucking this trend by refusing to focus on the latest kinases. Instead, the company is targeting the granddaddy of them all: Src kinase.

Before biotech had a meaning, Src was making its case as an anti-cancer target. In 1911, Peyton Rous showed that cancer could be induced in chickens by injecting them with a cell-free extract of the tumor. The reason was that the virus that bore his name, Rous sarcoma virus (RSV), contains the viral homolog of the cellular protein Src (pronounced "sark"). Identified in 1970, Src was the first gene to be dubbed as an oncogene. ...