Drugs that target gene expression: An overview

Over the last few years, it has become apparent that regulation of many normal physiological pathways, as well as the response to a wide variety of disease states, involves specific changes in gene transcription. The concept of drugs that regulate gene transcription is now firmly established. There are multiple, highly effective drugs in widespread use whose primary mechanism of action is to affect gene transcription. A major goal at Oncogene Science is to develop drugs that can modulate the normal physiological responses associated with disease by specifically increasing or decreasing the transcription of key genes. In this article, we review several examples of drugs that have been shown to act by regulating gene transcription and describe the approach Oncogene Science has pioneered.