Resistance: the next target for cancer care - Can a new research institute usher in a new era of disease treatment?

摘要

Cancerwill be defeated only by outwitting its ability to evolve more rapidly than the drugs treating it, the Institute of Cancer Research has decided. It has launched a programme to tackle what its chief executive, PaulWorkman, calls "the biggest challenge in cancer biology"— controlling chemotherapy resistance to drugs driven by darwinian selection. "Many patients respond well to drugs, but months oryears later tumours start to grow again," he told a briefing at the Science Media Centre in London last week. "Most of the cancer cells may be susceptible to the drug, but a small number are resistant. The vast majority of cancer deaths are the result of these cells forming new tumours."