(Vienna, 12 August 2026) For more than 70 years, the drug 6-thioguanine (6-TG) has been used to treat leukemia. In that work, researchers showed that NUDT5 performs a critical cellular function independently of its enzymatic activity. “We initially expected that NUDT5 would influence 6-TG through its enzymatic activity,” says co-first author Tuan-Anh Nguyen from CeMM. To investigate whether this was also true for NUDT5, the researchers turned to an emerging technology known as targeted protein degradation. Although the findings do not immediately point to a new therapy, they reveal an unexpected mechanism that influences the activity of a widely used leukemia drug.