Tumors with a mutated KRAS gene, including those in lung cancer, have been notoriously difficult to treat. Breakthroughs in targeted therapy, however, are showing signs of promise.

Vamsidhar Velcheti, MD, director of the Thoracic Medical Oncology Program at NYU Langone Health’s Perlmutter Cancer Center and guest host for the ASCO Daily News podcast, talks with Benjamin G. Neel, MD, PhD, the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Director of Perlmutter Cancer Center, about advances in drug design for targeting KRAS-mutant lung cancers and where the field is heading.

“I think ultimately, what we need to do is understand in detail how all of these different mutations that lead to cancer affect immune response and create targetable lesions in the immune response,” says Dr. Neel, also a professor in the Department of Medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. “In the big picture, what we really need to spend more attention on is understanding how the drugs we give and the mutations that are there in the first place affect immune response against the tumor, and ultimately try to develop strategies that somehow pick up an immune response against the tumor.”

Listen to Dr. Velcheti’s entire interview with Dr. Neel on ASCO Daily News.