Why some tumors withstand treatment
New cancer drugs allow doctors to tailor treatment based on the genetic profile of a patient’s tumor. However, these drugs don’t work at all in some patients, and they lose their effectiveness in others. A new study from MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital reveals why a certain class of these drugs, known as kinase inhibitors, doesn’t always halt tumor growth. The researchers found that while kinase inhibitors successfully shut down their targets, they also provoke cells to turn on a backup system that can take over for the one knocked out by the drug. The team also showed that disrupting both systems with a combination of drugs yields much better results, in a study of mice. “We’ve discovered a previously unappreciated mechanism involved in resistance to targeted therapeutics,” says Douglas Lauffenburger, the Ford Professor of Bioengineering and head of MIT’s Department of Biological Engineering. “Its presence appears to be associated with poor response...