Cancer is wily. Although drug developers are continually crafting hard-hitting drugs, a variety of factors, such as a tumor's genetic heterogeneity, mean that cancer usually comes out on top.
Something else is needed.
And that something, writes a panel of 180 researchers in a special issue of Seminars in Cancer Biology, is an array of treatments that bombard a series of targets. These treatments can be based on substances found in nature that are lower in cost and toxicity than many current treatments, the researchers write. Some of these compounds stem from plants, such as the Chinese herb Tripterygium wilfordii (although that herb, like many treatments is not without a downside: it also suppresses the immune system).
The team identified 74 molecular targets deserving of investigation and set up a framework for researchers to pitch in. And the time is now, researchers Anupam Bishayee, PhD, and Keith Block, MD, write in the introductory paper: "We have a long way to go before oncology can offer true comfort to most patients."
Stanford oncologist Dean Felsher, MD, PhD, was part of the project. "This is an area that merits considerable attention and where interdisciplinary and international collaboration is needed," he said in a statement. "Our approaches to therapy are improving, but we need a breakthrough that can helps us address the problem of relapse."
Previously: Researchers develop molecular target for brain cancer, Kidney cancer secrets revealed by Stanford researchers and Tool to identify the origin of certain types of cancer could be a "boon to doctors prescribing therapies"
Photo by Qwert1234
