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Taming the dragon: genomic biomarkers to individualize the treatment of cancer

Nature Medicine volume 17, pages 304–312 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

The gradual shift from cytotoxic drugs to highly selective, targeted therapeutic agents for cancer requires a parallel effort to characterize cancers at the molecular level to guide the choice of therapy for the individual patient. Here we review the genomic technologies that can be used to develop these drug response indicators, or biomarkers. We also discuss hurdles in their development and the implementation of biomarkers in clinical practice.

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Figure 1: Types of biomarker.
Figure 2: Development of a gene expression biomarker.
Figure 3: Pathway-targeted cancer therapies.
Figure 4: Biomarker-driven selection of targeted therapies.

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Acknowledgements

Our work was supported by grants from the Dutch Cancer Society, The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research and the European Research Council. I.M. was supported by a fellowship from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia.

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  1. Division of Molecular Carcinogenesis, Centre for Biomedical Genetics and Cancer Genomics Centre, The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Ian J Majewski & René Bernards

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Correspondence to René Bernards.

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René Bernards is founder and chief scientific officer of Agendia, a molecular diagnostics company.

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Majewski, I., Bernards, R. Taming the dragon: genomic biomarkers to individualize the treatment of cancer. Nat Med 17, 304–312 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.2311

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