News & Views VRACs swallow platinum drugs

Platinum-based drugs such as cisplatin and carboplatin are on the WHO model list of essential medicines, as highly effective chemotherapeutic drugs for the treatment of various solid tumors. These drugs react with purine residues in DNA, thereby caus-ing DNA damage, inhibition of cell division, and eventually cell death. However, the mechanisms whereby platinum-based drugs enter cancer cells remained poorly understood. In this issue, Planells-Cases et al (2015) provide evidence that cells take up cisplatin and carboplatin via volume-regulated anion channels (VRACs), more specifically VRACs composed o