Tuesday, October 31, 2017 - 11:43
Cancer is an ever-present scourge in modern society. More than 1.6 million Americans were diagnosed with cancer in 2016, and it is estimated to cost American citizens more than $156 billion annually by 2020.
Understanding how a tumor changes through time and recurs after surgery or treatment, as well as what types of drugs best kill the tumor, are essential for improving human cancer therapies.
Frequently, mouse models of cancer are used to study the disease and evaluate possible therapeutics, but a recent study from the Broad Institute Cancer Program demonstrates that mouse models do not represent human tumor evolution as well as thought, and these models may yield false-positive drug responses.