New Research Approach Identifies 171 Drug Candidates for Lung Cancer Treatment

Study in a Sentence: A new research approach screens a library of 200,000 chemical compounds with more than 100 well-characterized, human lung cancer cell lines to identify 'therapeutic triads': potential drug candidates that would kill the cancer cells, biomarkers that would predict who may respond to the candidate drug, and the molecular targets of each active chemical.

Healthy for Humans: This new high-throughput drug screening identified 171 drug candidates for the most common form of lung cancer, along with the genetic mutations or biomarkers in the cancers that would predict a positive response to each drug candidate, which will help advance the personalized treatment of lung cancers. 

Redefining Research: Unlike the traditional scientific approach that first identifies the molecular target before finding a chemical to modify the target, this new approach first finds an effective candidate drug and then defines the genetic mutations or molecular targets modulated by the candidate drug using molecular biology methods and computational tools. This alternative research paradigm can lead to quicker identification of effective human-relevant treatments without using animals. 

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