Dr. Lee on the Rationale for Evaluating Telaglenastat in RCC

Chung-Han Lee, MD, PhD, a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the rationale for evaluating telaglenastat in renal cell carcinoma (RCC).

Research regarding the natural history of RCC has shown that the disease appears to be a metabolic malignancy, says Lee. This means that many different metabolic alterations affect disease pathogenesis in RCC. 

Several preclinical studies ​have demonstrated that almost all of the molecules within the tricarboxylic acid cycle rely on glutamine​, which play​s an important role in the synthesis of fatty acid​s, Lee adds.

Notably, telaglenastat is able to block cells from utilizing glutamine​, explains Lee.

As such, this agent is being further evaluated in multiple clinical trials to determine if patients can derive benefit from an altered metabolism, Lee concludes