Activity Detail
Seminar
Unconventional approaches to cancer therapy.
René Bernards
Single-agent cancer therapeutics can initially be highly effective, but resistance remains a major challenge. Combining drugs can help avoid resistance, but the number of possible drug combinations vastly exceeds what can be tested clinically, both financially and in terms of patient availability. Rational drug combinations based on a deep understanding of the underlying molecular mechanisms associated with therapy resistance are potentially powerful in the treatment of cancer. In my lecture I will discuss several innovative ways to combine drugs to produce longer-lasting responses in patients. Examples will include synthetic lethal drug combinations, sequential treatment regimen and our very recent approaches to hyperactivate oncogenic signalling in cancer cells as a therapeutic strategy.