In 2019, DON was shown to kill tumor cells while reversing disease symptoms and improve overall survival in late-stage experimental glioblastoma in mice, when combined with calorie-restricted ketogenic diet.

[5] DON is a water-soluble yellowish powder, which can be dissolved also in aqueous solutions of methanol, acetone or ethanol, but dissolution in absolute alcohols is difficult.

Due to its similarity to glutamine, it can enter catalytic centres of these enzymes and inhibits them by covalent binding, or more precisely, by alkylation.

Different pathways were investigated; it could be shown that the inner mitochondrial membrane was damaged,[14] and that single strand DNA breaks occurred.

DON has not been approved as a pharmaceutical agent; however, it has been tested in combination with a recombinant glutaminase in clinical trials for the treatment of different solid tumors.