Crafting cancer combinations

Two U.S. groups have developed platforms that could improve the identification of cancer drug combinations that address drug resistance. A team from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine is using chemical proteomics to rationally design kinase inhibitor combinations that block signaling pathways mediating drug resistance,¹ whereas Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers are screening for targeted therapeutics that sensitize cancer cells to DNA-damaging agents when given sequentially rather than simultaneously.²

Each group has provided proof of principle for their platform by identifying a combination that showed efficacy in a mouse model of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC)...