[gdpawel]

On April 3, 2011, Dr. Robert Nagourney will have a Poster Session at an American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) meeting on the most recent findings on novel compounds that target two parallel pathways in cancer cells. These small molecules drugs, disrupt the signal that drives cancer cell survival and proliferation.

Cell function analysis of the mTOR/P13K and MEK/ERK inhibitors, BEZ235 and AZD6244, alone and in combination in human tumor primary culture micro-spheroids: Exploration of horizontal pathway targeting.

While the profiles of each drug alone are of interest, the profiles of the drugs in combination are better still.

The phenomenon of cross-talk defines an escape mechanism whereby cancer cells blocked from one passage, find a second. When clinical therapists have the capacity to block more than one pathway, the cancer cell is trapped and often dies.

This is what has been observed with these duel inhibitor combinations.

What is interesting is the fact that the activities cut across tumor types. Melanomas, colon cancers and lung cancers seem to have similar propensities to drive along these paths. Once again, we find that cancer biology is non-linear.

Moreover, cancers share pathways across tumor types, pathways that might not intuitively seem related. This is the beauty of cell-based functional profiling platform. It allows the exploration of drugs and combinations that most oncologists wouldn’t think of.

It is these counterintuitive explorations that will likely lead to meaningful advances.

Functional profiling measures biological signals rather than DNA indicators, which plays an important role in cancer drug selectlion and is demonstrably greater and more compelling data currently generated from DNA analyses.

Robert A. Nagourney, Paula Bernard, Federico Francisco, Ryan Wexler, Steve Evans, Rational Therapeutics, Long Beach, CA. Proceedings of AACR - Volume 52 - April 2011.