For years, the war on cancer has been about attacking specific body parts—developing treatment and funding research around lung cancer, for instance, or breast or brain cancer, to name others.
But it turns out the disease is more complex: Scientists now know that with genetic analysis, they can attack specific mutations of cancer cells rather than just the organs in which they appear. And so the fight against cancer is entering a new phase, one that focuses on developing tactics and medications to fight cancer cell by cell.
One of the most daunting tasks in the medical community, for instance, has been not only developing drugs that keep pace with the many ways cancer takes hold in a patient’s body, but also finding medication that will respond to specific abnormalities; in some cases, doctors must cycle through drug after drug with a patient to find an effective treatment.
Share this article
One of the biggest challenges of treatment guided by genetic analysis is the sheer volume of information doctors need to absorb in order to develop more personalized plans.
Read the full, original story: Could A Genome-Savvy Computer Help Change The Way We Treat Cancer?
