Cyclins

 

                                                                           The Cell Cycle 

 

 

 

 

 

2001: Nobel Prize In Physiology/Medicine 

 

The importance of this discovery was recognized with the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, awarded to:

• Leland H. Hartwell
• Tim Hunt
• Paul Nurse

 For discovering:

• Key regulators of the cell cycle (cyclins and CDKs)
• The conserved nature of cell cycle control

---

 

 

 

Understanding CDKs has had huge clinical implications:

• Dysregulated CDKs → cancer
• Development of CDK inhibitors (e.g., Palbociclib) for cancer therapy 

 

                                                                                Palbociclib 

After the discovery of CDKs (by Paul Nurse, Leland H. Hartwell, and Tim Hunt), scientists realized: Overactive CDK4/6 → uncontrolled cell proliferation → cancer

• Developed by Pfizer
• Originally known as PD-0332991
• Designed as a selective CDK4/6 inhibitor 
•  It arrests cells in G1 phase by preventing phosphorylation of the Rb (retinoblastoma) protein 

 

 

 

 

 

FDA Approved CDK Inhibitors 

 

 

 

 

Snapshot