An expert guide to targeting protein kinases in cancer therapy research has shown that protein kinases can instigate the formation and spread of cancer when they transmit faulty signals inside cells because of this fact pharmaceutical scientists have targeted kinases for intensive study and have been working to develop medicinal roadblocks to sever their malignant means of communication. Protein kinases play a key role in regulating signal transduction and cell cycle pathways dysregulation of protein kinase activity is known to be an important factor in tumorigenesis and this finding has accelerated the development of a number of novel anti cancer agents that target this family of proteins four groups of protein kinases are commonly described the first group comprises the receptor tyrosine kinases including epidermal growth factor receptor insulin like growth factor 1 . The catalytic activity of dna dependent protein kinase dna pk is critical to its ability to repair lethal dna double strand breaks dsbs this includes repair of dsb lesions resulting from oxidative stress oncogene induced transcription or following therapeutic treatment of cancer cells armed with this knowledge many attempts have been made to identify small molecule inhibitors of dna pk activity as an approach to induce tumour chemo and radiosensitisation this review examines the . Targeting protein kinases in cancer therapy fabbro d1 garcia echeverria c author information 1oncology research novartis pharma ag ch 4002 basel switzerland dorianofabbropharmanovartiscom over the years many different tyrosine and serine threonine protein kinases have been selected as candidates for drug discovery activities in oncology research based either on their