UCLA researchers knew - based on two clinical trials - that a subset of kidney cancer patients responded well to an experimental targeted therapy, but they didn’t know why. If they could determine the mechanism behind the response, they would be able to predict which patients would respond and personalize their treatment accordingly.Extrapolating from the clinical responses, Jonsson Cancer Center scientists uncovered the cascade of molecular events by which the cancer cells in a subset of patients became sensitized to the experimental drug CCI-779. Armed with this information, UCLA researchers are developing a test to identify which patients will benefit from receiving CCI-779.The research, published this month in Nature Medicine, takes researchers a step closer to personalized medicine - treating cancer patients not with a one-size-fits-all therapy but with a treatment based on the specific molecular signature of their cancer cells.
