A new study led by Shohei Koide, PhD, director of cancer biologics at NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, and Benjamin G. Neel, MD, PhD, the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Director of Perlmutter Cancer Center, shows that an engineered antibody successfully kills KRAS-G12C–mutated lung cancer cells resistant to the KRAS inhibitor sotorasib. The study, which is highlighted in the National Cancer Institute’s NCI Cancer Currents Blog, suggests a new way to use immunotherapy to treat tumors with the KRAS-G12C mutation.

“Even when genetic and other changes frustrate targeted therapies, they often still attach to their target proteins in cancer cells, and this attachment can be used to label those cells for immunotherapy attack,” says Dr. Koide, also a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.

“A given drug would only need to flag cancer cells, not fully inhibit them,” says Dr. Neel, also a professor in the Department of Medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.

Read more from NCI Cancer Currents Blog.