NYU Langone researchers have found a biological weakness in the workings of the most commonly mutated gene involved in human cancers, known as mutant K-Ras, which they say can be exploited by drug chemotherapies to thwart tumor growth. In that study, the researchers discovered how a frequently used chemo­therapy drug could be much more effective in killing K-Ras cells when the cells’ ability to check their DNA for damage was blocked, by cutting off the activity of two related genes, H-Ras and N-Ras. The results were reported online in Cancer Cell on February 10, 2014, by researchers in the laboratory of senior study investigator Dafna Bar-Sagi, PhD, professor of biochemistry and molecular pharmacology and medicine, senior vice president and vice dean for science, and chief scientific officer; and lead study investigator Elda Grabocka, PhD.