( Institute of Materia Medica, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200031, China)

Abstract Fatty acids, the products of fatty acid synthesis, are essential components and forms of energy for cancer growth. Compared to normal human tissues, many common human cancers express elevated levels of fatty acid synthase (FAS), the important enzyme responsible for the synthesis of fatty acid, suggesting FAS can be a specific target for cancer therapy.