What of outlier analysis? What of those complicated diseases whose complexity and variability challenge even the best minds? How do they continue to bang the round peg of cancer therapy into the square hole of formulaic care?
In a conference sponsored by the Institute of Medicine, scientists representing both public and private institutions examined the obstacles that confront researchers in their efforts to develop effective combinations of targeted cancer agents.
In a periodical published by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in their September 1, 2011 issue of the ASCO Post, contributor Margo J. Fromer, who participated in the conference, wrote about it.
One of the participants, Jane Perlmutter, PhD, of the Gemini Group, pointed out that advances in genomics have provided sophisticated target therapies, but noted, “cellular pathways contain redundancies that can be activated in response to inhibition of one or another pathway, thus promoting emergence of resistant cells and clinical relapse.”
James Doroshow, MD, deputy director for clinical and translational research at the NCI, said, “the mechanism of actions for a growing number of targeted agents that are available for trials, are not completely understood.”
He went on to say that the “lack of the right assays or imaging tools means inability to assess the target effect of many agents.” He added that “we need to investigate the molecular effects . . . in surrogate tissues,” and concluded “this is a huge undertaking.”
Michael T. Barrett, PhD, of TGen, pointed out that “each patient’s cancer could require it’s own specific therapy.” This was followed by Kurt Bachman of GlaxoSmithKline, who opined, “the challenge is to identify the tumor types most likely to respond, to find biomarkers that predict response, and to define the relationship of the predictors to biology of the inhibitors.”
What they were describing was precisely the work that Laboratory Oncologists involved with phenotype analysis have been doing for the past two decades. One of those clinicians felt that there had been an epiphany.
The complexities and redundancies of human tumor biology had finally dawned on these investigators, who had previously clung unwaiveringly to their analyte-based molecular platforms.
The molecular biologists humbled by the manifest complexity of human tumor biology had finally recognized that they were outgunned and whole-cell experimental models had gained the hegemony they so rightly deserved.
http://cancerfocus.org/forum/showthread.php?t=3251
Linear Mode
