Targeted therapies were initially developed to exploit the upregulation and dependence on key oncogenic pathways critical to cancer progression. Additionally, they also presented as a method to overcome chemoresistance by supplementing conventional therapeutic regimens with targeted therapies. However, the development of resistance to these combinatorial approaches has led to the reassessment of currently available therapeutic options to overcome resistance to targeted therapy. This book aims to provide an update on the advancements in the therapeutic arms race between cancer, clinicians and scientists alike to overcome resistance to targeted therapies. Subject experts provide a comprehensive overview of the challenges and solutions to resistance to several conventional targeted therapies in addition to providing a discussion on broad topics including targeting components of the tumor microenvironment, emerging therapeutic options, and novel areas to be explored concerning nanotechnology and the epigenome.
Myron R. Szewczuk, Ph.D. is currently Professor of Immunology and Medicine, Department Biomedical and Molecular Sciences and Medicine, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario Canada for the past 38 years. He received his B.Sc. in Chemistry (U. of Guelph), M.Sc. in Biochemistry (Guelph), Ph.D. in Immunochemistry (U. of Windsor) and post-doctoral training with Gregory Siskind, M.D. in Cellular Immunology at Cornell University Medical College, NYC. Dr. Szewczuk's recent research has focused on the role of glycosylation in receptor activation with a particular focus of Toll-like, nerve growth factor Trk, EGFR and insulin receptors. He has discovered a novel receptor-signalling platform and its targeted translation in multistage of tumorigenesis and metabolic syndrome. He is now in the development of engineered drug delivery systems.
Manpreet Sambi is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Biomedical and Molecular Sciences, Queen's University, Kingston ON, Canada. She is under the direct supervision of Dr. Myron R. Szewczuk (co-editor of this volume) and is co-supervised by Dr. William Harless, M.D., Ph.D., certified Medical Oncologist and CEO of Encyt Technologies, Inc., Sydney NS. She received her B.Sc. in Integrative Biology and her M.Sc. in Physiology from the University of Toronto. Her Master's research focused on regenerative medicine, directed differentiation of stem cells and tissue regeneration. Manpreet's doctoral research focuses on therapeutic targeting cancer stem cells (CSC). To do this, she is working towards understanding the mechanisms of cancer stem cell activation and proliferation with an emphasis on the influence of key inflammatory cytokines in modulating these processes. She is also exploring therapeutic avenues to target this population of cancer cells by coupling nanomedicine with multimodal therapeutic approaches for more effective targeting of cancer stem cells. Collectively, this knowledge will improve the potency of current treatment options and improve patient survival.
Bessi Qorri is currently a Ph.D. student in the Department of Biomedical and Molecular Sciences at Queen's University, under the direct supervision of Dr. Myron R. Szewczuk and Dr. William Harless, M.D., Ph.D., certified Medical Oncologist and CEO of Encyt Technologies, Inc., Sydney NS. Bessi's research interests lie in the field of cancer and immunology. Her doctoral work involves optimizing the combination of a drug cocktail consisting of drugs repurposed as anti-cancer agents. She is working on uncovering the overlapping mechanisms of action of the combination of aspirin, metformin and oseltamivir phosphate in targeting multistage tumorigenesis in pancreatic cancer via a novel signalling paradigm identified by Dr. Myron R. Szewczuk.
