Tumor Heterogeneity and Personalized Medicine

In the past 10 years, the number of tools available to treat cancer has increased, as has our understanding of what makes some cancers tick. The standard old-time cancer treatments were largely predicated on attacking DNA, an approach fueled by the belief that tumor cells divide more rapidly than normal cells. However, with the notable exception of Burkitt's lymphoma, only a small percentage of tumor cells in a patient are dividing at any given time. As we have learned more about DNA repair mechanisms and epigenetic alterations in cancers, DNA remains a viable target for new cancer therapies, but DNA . . .