Drugs that block the function of oncogenic proteins hold great promise in the fight against cancer. ...

Oncogenic proteins lead toward cancer, because they have excessive or unregulated activity in comparison with the corresponding normal proteins. Blocking this activity with a drug molecule that simply clogs the active site of the oncogenic protein removes the danger. For a tumor suppressor gene, the danger lies in a loss of function, and there is generally no simple way for a drug molecule to restore a protein function that has been lost. It is therefore hard to see how we could achieve any useful effect on cancer by means of drugs that interfere with tumor suppressor gene products. A drug that simply inhibited their function would be expected to promote, not cure, cancer.

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