Kidney Cancer
mTOR is one of the cell's master switches — a kinase that tells cells when to grow, divide, and consume nutrients. When mTOR signaling jams "on," cells keep growing. In kidney cancer, blocking it is one of the best treatment options medicine has: several FDA-approved treatments work by inhibiting mTOR.
But mTOR isn't broken the same way in every patient. About 2% of cancers across all types carry mutations in mTOR itself, and each mutation changes the protein differently. The same inhibitor doesn't work for everyone.
Folding@home's projects 10491–10499, led by the Chodera lab, simulate mTOR carrying the specific mutations doctors find in patient tumors. The goal: predict which mutants will respond to existing inhibitors and which need something new — a step toward matching each patient with the treatment most likely to help them.
Read more
Mechanistically distinct cancer-associated mTOR activation clusters predict sensitivity to rapamycin
Journal of Clinical Investigation. F@H simulations sorted mTOR cancer mutants into clusters with different responses to rapamycin.
Understanding mTOR mutants in kidney cancer
Plain-language summary of the JCI paper.
mTOR: Projects 10491–10499
The Chodera lab launches the F@H projects behind the paper.
Browse all F@H papers
Folding@home publications across cancer, infection, and neurological disease.