In signal transduction research, protein kinase inhibitors help scientists tease out the vagaries of complex signaling pathways, but anecdotal evidence suggests that they are flawed tools at best, lacking the specificity necessary to draw conclusions from their use. Though experts agree that inhibitors have a legitimate place in science as screening tools, can researchers conduct good science on the carbon backbones of such agents?
Philip Cohen decided to find out. Cohen, Royal Society research professor and director of the Medical Research Council's protein phosphorylation unit, University of Dundee, Scotland, and colleagues published a study that finally quantified the specificity of a battery of commercially available, allegedly selective inhibitors.1 For the most part, Cohen found that the rumor of their precision was greatly exaggerated. "It became clear that many of them were absolutely hopeless," says Cohen. This study, which became a Hot Paper, lays out guidelines for validating kinase inhibitor data.
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