Simon Richard
National Cancer Institute, Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
Eur J Cancer. 2008 Dec;44(18):2707-13. doi: 10.1016/j.ejca.2008.09.009. Epub 2008 Nov 1.
Developments in whole genome biotechnology have dramatically increased the opportunities for developing more effective therapeutics and for targeting them to patients who require them and who can benefit from them. This can have profound benefits for patients and for the economics of health care. There are, however, many obstacles to overcome in achieving this revolution. The effectiveness of translational research in oncology is seriously limited by many factors, both structural and scientific. Some of the obstacles involve the failure of biomedical organisations to develop and fund new models of inter-disciplinary collaboration needed to attract and support the best and brightest quantitative scientists to predictive medicine. Many of the challenges are scientific, requiring paradigm changes in the way drugs are developed and in the way clinical trials are designed and analysed. Some of these issues are addressed here, specifically in the context of developing molecular diagnostics in a manner that moves retrospective correlative science to prospective predictive medicine.
全基因组生物技术的发展极大地增加了开发更有效治疗方法的机会，并使这些治疗方法能够针对需要它们且能从中受益的患者。这对患者和医疗保健经济都可能带来深远益处。然而，要实现这一变革还有许多障碍需要克服。肿瘤学转化研究的有效性受到许多结构和科学因素的严重限制。一些障碍包括生物医学组织未能开发和资助新型跨学科合作模式，而这种模式是吸引和支持最优秀、最聪明的定量科学家投身预测医学所必需的。许多挑战是科学性的，需要在药物研发方式以及临床试验设计和分析方式上进行范式转变。本文将探讨其中一些问题，特别是在以一种将回顾性关联科学转变为前瞻性预测医学的方式开发分子诊断技术的背景下。
