Time for Rational Therapy?

At the 2012 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) meeting recently held in Chicago, I again observed that the AACR presentations continue to diverge from those at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). At this year’s meeting, I’m not sure I heard the word “chemotherapy” a single time. That is, all of the alphabet soup combinations that make up the sessions at ASCO are nowhere to be found at the AACR meeting. Instead, targeted agents, genomics, proteomics and the growing field of metabolomics reign supreme.

Over the coming weeks, I will blog about some of the more interesting presentations I attended. However, I note below several themes that seemed to emerge.

First: That cancer patients are highly unique. In one presentation using phosphoprotein signatures to connect genetic features to phenotypic expression, the investigator conducted 21 phosphoprotein signatures and found 21 different patterns. This, he noted, reflected the “uniqueness” of each individual.

Additional themes included the growing development of meaningfully effective immune therapies. There was evidence of a renewed interest in tissue cultures as the best platform to study drug effects and interactions. Although virtually every presentation began with the obligatory reference to genomic analysis, almost every one of them then doubled back to metabolism as the principal driver of human cancer.

Interestingly, the one phrase that cropped up time and time again was rational therapeutics. Although they did not appear to be referring to our group, it was comforting to note that they are at least, finally coming around to our philosophy.