Resistance to a Medication for Chronic Myeloid Leukemia

This animation shows why a mutant BCR-ABL protein is resistant to the cancer treatment drug Gleevec, and how a new drug can overcome this resistance.

Gleevec is a drug for treating chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), a cancer of white blood cells. In CML, white blood cells divide uncontrollably due to an overactive tyrosine kinase protein called BCR-ABL. Although Gleevec usually blocks the activity of BCR-ABL, it is unable to bind a particular mutant form of the protein. Dasatinib, another drug that does bind to the mutant protein, can be used to treat CML patients with Gleevec resistance.

This animation is a clip from a 2013 Holiday Lecture Series, Medicine in the Genomic Era. Depending on students’ background, it may be helpful to pause the animation at various points to discuss different molecules and their structures.