Infographic: Mechanisms of Resistance

Cancers appear to be able to evolve resistance to many of the therapies doctors have tried.

Written byAnna Azvolinsky

| 2 min read

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Cancer cells can evolve ways to evade a drug’s attack, or they may already be resistant prior to treatment.

Resistance to chemotherapy likely encompasses a broad range of mechanisms having to do with DNA repair, cell cycle arrest, apoptotic pathways, and others, many of which are still unknown. When it comes to molecular-targeted agents and immunotherapies, however, research has nailed down some basic strategies.

Mutations within the target protein can prevent drug binding, or keep the protein active despite drug binding.

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Meet the Author

Anna Azvolinsky
Anna Azvolinsky received a PhD in molecular biology in November 2008 from Princeton University. Her graduate research focused on a genome-wide analyses of genomic integrity and DNA replication. She did a one-year post-doctoral fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City and then left academia to pursue science writing. She has been a freelance science writer since 2012, based in New York City.
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