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Therapy

Colorectal cancer: how to teach an old drug new tricks

Subclassification of colorectal cancers can inform patient prognosis and response to treatment. Beyond these functions, a recent study demonstrates that molecular subtyping can also play an important part in rational drug discovery, uncovering new indications for drugs previously thought ineffective.

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Figure 1: Effect of biomarker-based selection of patient populations for targeted intervention

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Acknowledgements

L.M.E. gratefully acknowledges the support of funding from The William C. Liedtke, Jr Chair in Cancer Research, and the US Department of Defense Grant CA140515.

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Correspondence to Axel Grothey.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Grothey, A., Ellis, L. Colorectal cancer: how to teach an old drug new tricks. Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol 13, 384–385 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrgastro.2016.87

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