By screening a simplified combinatorial tetrapeptide library, followed by chemical optimisation, we developed the pharmacological D-tripeptide inhibitor, DTP3, which specifically binds to MKK7 with high affinity, disrupting the GADD45β/MKK7 interaction, and, as a result, selectively kills multiple myeloma cells by inducing MKK7/JNK-dependent apoptosis (Fig. 1) (Tornatore et al., 2014; Tornatore et al., 2015). This evidence concerns the gene MAPK8 and plasma cell myeloma.