How cancer cells quickly learn to dodge a key drug
Drug resistance is a major hurdle for cancer treatment. Cancer cells can stubbornly defy chemotherapy, even after responding initially. Scientists have long sought to understand the mechanisms responsible in hopes of finding ways to circumvent them.
A recent study in Cell Systems sheds light on how skin cancer cells develop resistance to vemurafenib, a BRAF inhibitor that targets melanoma. The research reveals the cellular tactics and the timeline that melanoma cells use to bypass the drug’s intended impacts on the cells’ communication systems. The effects in the first couple of hours or days after administering a cancer drug are “crazy revealing,” says study coauthor James Heath, a chemist at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, WA. “You just see all hell breaks loose inside the cell, and I think that is something that we really show here for the first time.” The work could have implications for treatment strategies.
Despite decades of research, psychiatrists still don’t have reliable biomarkers to trace the path of human misery. The complexity and heterogeneity of psychiatric conditions means that there are no biopsies for bipolar disorder and no blood tests or brain scans to indicate the depths of someone’s depression. Even once diagnosed and offered treatment, many patients struggle to improve because they miss appointments, don’t take medication, and fail to realize when their state of mind is about to take a downturn.
