Year: 2006
Type: article
Abstract: The urgent need for better cancer treatments has stimulated interest in employing small-animal models to evaluate potential drug therapies.Robust mouse models of many human cancers have been generated using sophisticated technologies for engineering germ-line mutations.As we enter into an age of targeted therapeutics, these strains provide novel platforms for validating new anticancer drugs, assessing therapeutic index, identifying surrogate markers of tumor progression, and defining epigenetic and environmental influences on tumorigenesis.The availability of strains of genetically engineered mice (GEM) that develop a spectrum of cancers similar to those found in humans offers an unprecedented opportunity to efficiently evaluate the efficacy and therapeutic index of novel anticancer therapies in preclinical models in advance of human trials.While straightforward in principle, executing preclinical studies in mice that allow for meaningful and immediate application to the treatment of human cancer is difficult.Moreover, the potential use of GEM cancer models to accelerate the process of bringing effective new treatments to patients is largely theoretical, as few examples exist in which mouse preclinical data has been successfully translated to clinical practice.
DOI: 10.1172/jci28271
Author: D. H. Gutmann
Institutions: Washington University in St. Louis, Neurology, Inc
Language: English
Topic: Cancer Cells and Metastasis
Subfield: Oncology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2084356288