Teaser

Development of cancer cell resistance to designer drugs is inevitable, so clinical trials should be initiated with, rather than succeed by combination therapies specifically designed to blunt multiple, alternative signaling pathways.

Abstract:
Successful use of anti-cancer designer drugs is likely to depend on simultaneous combinations of these drugs to minimize the development of resistant cancer cells. Considering the knowledge base of cancer signaling pathways, mechanisms of designer drug resistance should be anticipated, and early clinical trials could be designed to include arms that combine new drugs specifically with currently approved FDA drugs expected to blunt alternative signaling pathways. In this review, we indicate examples of alternative signal pathways for recent anti-cancer drugs, and the use of original, Python based software to systematically identify signaling pathways that could facilitate resistance to drugs targeting a specific protein.