{"title":"Breaking barriers: we need a multidisciplinary approach to tackle cancer drug resistance.","authors":"James Ingham, Jia-Ling Ruan, Matthew A Coelho","doi":"10.1038/s44276-025-00129-2","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Most cancer-related deaths result from drug-resistant disease(1,2). However, cancer drug resistance is not a primary focus in drug development. Effectively mitigating and treating drug-resistant cancer will require advancements in multiple fields, including early detection, drug discovery, and our fundamental understanding of cancer biology. Therefore, successfully tackling drug resistance requires an increasingly multidisciplinary approach. A recent workshop on cancer drug resistance, jointly organised by Cancer Research UK, the Rosetrees Trust, and the UKRI-funded Physics of Life Network, brought together experts in cell biology, physical sciences, computational biology, drug discovery, and clinicians to focus on these key challenges and devise interdisciplinary approaches to address them. In this perspective, we review the outcomes of the workshop and highlight unanswered research questions. We outline the emerging hallmarks of drug resistance and discuss lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and antimicrobial resistance that could help accelerate information sharing and timely adoption of research discoveries into the clinic. We envisage that initiatives that drive greater interdisciplinarity will yield rich dividends in developing new ways to better detect, monitor, and treat drug resistance, thereby improving treatment outcomes for cancer patients.</p>","PeriodicalId":519964,"journal":{"name":"BJC reports","volume":"3 1","pages":"11"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2025-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11868516/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"BJC reports","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s44276-025-00129-2","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Most cancer-related deaths result from drug-resistant disease(1,2). However, cancer drug resistance is not a primary focus in drug development. Effectively mitigating and treating drug-resistant cancer will require advancements in multiple fields, including early detection, drug discovery, and our fundamental understanding of cancer biology. Therefore, successfully tackling drug resistance requires an increasingly multidisciplinary approach. A recent workshop on cancer drug resistance, jointly organised by Cancer Research UK, the Rosetrees Trust, and the UKRI-funded Physics of Life Network, brought together experts in cell biology, physical sciences, computational biology, drug discovery, and clinicians to focus on these key challenges and devise interdisciplinary approaches to address them. In this perspective, we review the outcomes of the workshop and highlight unanswered research questions. We outline the emerging hallmarks of drug resistance and discuss lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic and antimicrobial resistance that could help accelerate information sharing and timely adoption of research discoveries into the clinic. We envisage that initiatives that drive greater interdisciplinarity will yield rich dividends in developing new ways to better detect, monitor, and treat drug resistance, thereby improving treatment outcomes for cancer patients.
大多数与癌症相关的死亡都是由耐药性疾病造成的(1,2)。然而,癌症耐药性并不是药物开发的主要重点。要有效缓解和治疗耐药性癌症,需要在多个领域取得进展,包括早期检测、药物发现以及我们对癌症生物学的基本认识。因此,成功应对耐药性需要越来越多的多学科方法。最近,英国癌症研究中心(Cancer Research UK)、罗塞特里信托基金会(Rosetrees Trust)和英国生命物理学会(UKRI)资助的生命物理学网络(Physics of Life Network)联合举办了癌症耐药性研讨会,汇集了细胞生物学、物理科学、计算生物学、药物发现和临床医生等领域的专家,共同关注这些关键挑战,并制定跨学科方法来应对这些挑战。在本视角中,我们回顾了研讨会的成果,并重点介绍了尚未解决的研究问题。我们概述了新出现的耐药性特征,并讨论了从 COVID-19 大流行和抗菌药耐药性中吸取的经验教训,这些经验教训有助于加快信息共享并及时将研究发现应用于临床。我们设想,推动跨学科发展的举措将带来丰厚的回报,开发出更好地检测、监测和治疗耐药性的新方法,从而改善癌症患者的治疗效果。