Combinatorial targeting of the CDK12-BAF gene regulatory axis in cancer

Cancer remains a key challenge of medicine. We exploit a reliance of cancer on a gene regulator CDK12 to identify novel combination therapies. We use CDK12 inhibitors, systematic genetic approaches and patient-derived samples to find molecules of which co-targeting with CDK12 eliminates cancer. Our preliminary work shows already that co-targeting of CDK12 and BAF complex slows cancer cell growth on a petri dish. Our work shall yield novel candidate therapies for subsequent pre-clinical studies.