Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists discovered that an antibiotic developed in the 1950s and largely superseded by newer drugs, effectively targets and kills cancer cells that have a common genetic defect. Studies in laboratory cell lines and in mouse tumor models showed how the antibiotic, novobiocin (NVB), selectively killed tumor cells with abnormal BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes, which normally help to repair damaged DNA.
The drug was effective even in tumors that were resistant to PARP inhibitors (PARPi), which have become a prime therapy for cancers with DNA-repair glitches.