New cancer drug test promises safer and more effective clini...(our said Dr Schonn. The new test...)

The new test allows scientists to translate findings from commonly used cell lines to a preclinical model which is as close as possible to using the same drug in the clinical setting, thus enabling a better estimate of the number of patients who are likely to respond to the treatment. It also helps to identify biomarkers that can predict drug response for patients entering a clinical trial, allowing researchers to include only those patients whose participation will provide a significant answer to the question being asked.

"Together with all the clinical patient data and several analytical test systems such as signalling pathway analysis, we have been able to characterise individual tumours in more detail. This will improve the understanding of drug effects and treatments, a step forward towards the goal of individualised cancer therapy," she said. "The test is of particular interest to pharmaceutical companies because it allows the analysis of samples from meaningful number of patients with different tumours in a short period of time, and can, therefore, accelerate progression of a potential new treatment to clinical trials."

In addition, it can help gain more knowledge about the mode of action of a new compound in patients, and identify optimal disease areas, for example tumours with particular mutations or over-expression of target receptors, and dosage.

To date the test has only been validated in colon, non small cell lung, and breast cancer tumours but there is no reason to think that it would not be equally accurate in other solid tumour types, the scientists say. "Because the test allows us to maintain the complex environment of the primary cancer tumour, we believe that it holds out great promise for the quick and effective elucidation of response to anticancer drugs," said Dr Schonn. "We hope to be able to apply it to a growing number of drugs emerging from the labs of pharmaceutical companies to
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