Cancer Pharmacology

"We are living in an exciting time for cancer pharmacology, where the fusion of multiple disciplines of basic and clinical science are creating effective, life-prolonging therapies for a growing number of malignancies. Historically, the first anticancer agents targeted molecules that are critical to the overall process of cell replications in both normal and malignant cells and, as such, were relatively non-discriminatory in their cytotoxicity. The revolution in molecular technology that began in the late 1980's is now being brought to bear on the structural design of agents that selectively target tumor-related gene mutations and signaling pathway intermediaries in ways that may augment tumor cell death and spare underlying normal cell populations"--