AURKA and cancer: It was thus hypothesized that adding a MEK inhibitor to an Aurora A kinase inhibitor, which may induce DNA damage through induction of defects in mitotic progression (Perez de Castro et al., 2013) and differentially target the cell cycle at G2/M phase (Hirota et al., 2003), may protect the genomic instability induced by the Aurora A kinase inhibitor from cell cycle check points and DNA damage response, ultimately facilitating cancer cell death (Collins et al., 2012).