5-Nitrofurans and Cancer: Teaching an Old Drug New Tricks.

Aldehyde dehydrogenases (ALDHs) are known as robust markers of tumor-initiating cells and as potential therapeutic targets for cancer. In this issue of Cell Chemical Biology, Sarvi et al. (2018) demonstrate that 5-nitrofuran antibiotics can target ALDH-expressing cancer cells in two distinct ways, effectively depleting melanomas of their tumor-initiating cells.