The push for personalized medicine is forcing cancer researchers to re-evaluate how they approach the disease, and shifting the focus of research to diagnostic tools, a trio of leaders in the field of genomics said yesterday (June 2) at a panel discussion on personalized medicine marking the opening of a new cancer research center at the University of California, San Francisco.
Scientists are breaking out of the mold of typing cancer by the part of the body in which it originates, said linkurl:Susan Desmond-Hellmann,;http://www.ucsfhealth.org/adult/health_library/news/2009/05/121510.html, who was recently appointed chancellor of UCSF. While with Genentech between 1995 and last month, Desmond-Hellmann oversaw the development of the drug Herceptin, which targets breast tumors formed by a genetic mutation that upregulates the gene HER2. Herceptin, touted as an early success in personalized medicine, is "a very precise weapon not for breast...
Photo: J. Ryan Williams |
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