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Antitumor pharmacological research in the era of personalized medicine

Acta Pharmacologica Sinica volume 43, pages 3015–3020 (2022)Cite this article

Abstract

Anticancer drug discovery has yielded unprecedented progress in recent decades, resulting in the approval of innovative treatment options for patients and the successful implementation of personalized medicine in clinical practice. This remarkable progress has also reshaped the research scope of pharmacological research. This article, as a tribute to cancer research at Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica in celebration of the institute’s 90th birthday, provides an overview of the conceptual revolution occurring in anticancer therapy, and summarizes our recent progress in the development of molecularly targeted therapeutics and exploration of new strategies in personalized medicine. With this review, we hope to provide a glimpse into how antitumor pharmacological researchers have embraced the new era of personalized medicine research and to propose a future path for anticancer drug discovery and pharmacological research.

Anticancer drug discovery has experienced unprecedented progress in the past decades, especially in the development of molecularly targeted anticancer therapeutics that have profoundly altered the conceptual overview of cancer treatment and promoted a paradigm shift from a population-based “one-size-fits-all” treatment approach to a personalized medicine [1]. These advancements have significantly benefited cancer patients and also reshaped the research scope of antitumor pharmacology. Apart from conventional studies addressing the therapeutic potential and mechanism of action of new anticancer agents, the pharmacological research in the new era has focused on identifying biomarkers for tailoring drug treatment in preclinical development and clinical practice and understanding molecular mechanisms that confer synergy between different anticancer modalities, thereby providing useful insights for clinical decision-making in personalized medicine.

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Fig. 1: Schematic diagram depicting therapeutic strategies exploiting targets conferring oncogene or non-oncogene addiction.
Fig. 2: Schematic diagram depicting a dual-biomarker guided personalized treatment of targeted anticancer therapy.
Fig. 3: Schematic diagram depicting a stepwise personalized combination strategy for EZH2 inhibitors.

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Acknowledgements

The authors sincerely thank all the individuals who have contributed to the work that has been reviewed in this article, including all the members who were either directly or indirectly involved in the Division of Antitumor Pharmacology at SIMM, as well as all our collaborators. This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China for Innovation Research Group (No. 81821005).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Drug Research, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 201203, China

    Min Huang, Mei-yu Geng & Jian Ding

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Min Huang, Mei-yu Geng & Jian Ding

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  1. Min Huang
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Correspondence to Jian Ding.

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M.H. was a consultant of Haihe Biopharma and J.D. is the Chairman of Board of Haihe Biopharma.

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Huang, M., Geng, My. & Ding, J. Antitumor pharmacological research in the era of personalized medicine. Acta Pharmacol Sin 43, 3015–3020 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41401-022-01023-0

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Keywords

  • personalized medicine
  • anticancer drug discovery
  • oncogene addiction
  • non-oncogene addiction
  • combination therapy

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