Conference scene: 2nd cancer epigenetics conference

The GTC Cancer Summit: Novel Approaches to Drug Discovery was divided into two parallel tracks: the 2nd Cancer Epigenetics Conference, and the Protein Kinases and Drug Design Conference. The 2nd Cancer Epigenetics Conference focused on exciting changes in drug discovery that include an unprecedented private and public collaboration on drug discovery in epigenetics through the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC), which has led to several major breakthroughs including: the development of small-molecule inhibitors that interfere with protein interactions, especially bromodomain-containing protein acetylation readers; the indirect but successful targeting of the elusive MYC oncogene; and the identification of epigenetic drugs that are disease-specific. Also reported were the development of clinically useful DNA methylation assays; cell, peptide and protein arrays for testing antibody- and protein-binding specificity; and tools for chromatin capture and DNA modification analysis. Several groups reported on the lack of specificity of some commercial, but unnamed, antibodies used for epigenetic studies.