Two decades of PARP inhibitor synthetic lethality in cancer
PARP inhibitors represent a landmark precision medicine success for BRCA-mutant cancers, with emerging strategies to extend synthetic lethality beyond BRCA.
Lord, Tutt, and Ashworth—the researchers who discovered PARP inhibitor synthetic lethality—provide a definitive 20-year synthesis published in Nature, tracing the concept from fundamental biology to approved therapy for BRCA-mutant breast, ovarian, prostate, and pancreatic cancers. The review contextualizes BRCA/PARP inhibitor therapy as the paradigm example of translational precision oncology and outlines emerging synthetic lethal concepts beyond BRCA.
What the study was
- Study design
- Narrative review / 20-year synthesis
- Population
- Patients with BRCA1/2-mutant breast, ovarian, prostate, and pancreatic cancer; broader cancer populations with homologous recombination deficiency
- Category
- Treatment Innovation
- Maturity
- Validated
- Journal
- Nature
Why it surfaced
Definitive review by founding authors in Nature covering full PARP inhibitor clinical evidence base; essential reference for precision oncology pipeline context; establishes synthetic lethality paradigm as model for next-generation targeted therapy development
A plain-language summary of published research — not medical advice. Talk to a clinician about your own care.