People on the Move
Institute of Cancer Research
The UK Institute of Cancer Research has appointed cancer expert Paul Workman as Chief Executive.
His first pledge has been a “three-pronged” drug discovery programme designed to fight cancer evolution and drug resistance.
Workman said expanding the druggable cancer genome, discovering and implementing the best drug cominations, and discovering cancer “network drugs” will be the Institution’s priorities.
“Although around 500 cancer-causing proteins are known, we only have drugs that target about 5 per cent of them,” he said. “It will be essential to focus more effort on discovering innovative drugs that act on currently untargeted cancer proteins, rather than developing ‘me too’ drugs which simply mimic the effects of existing medicines.”
He added that to overcome drug resistance, “we will need to use drugs in combinations – as in HIV and tuberculosis – so they can together cut off cancer’s evolutionary escape routes.”
Workman said “network drugs” – which hit cancer harder than drugs targeted to only one protein, by acting on several targets at once, will be key to “hijacking” cancer.
