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Harvard researchers, led by Professor Martin Nowak and postdoctoral fellow Ivana Bozic, have proposed a groundbreaking approach to cancer treatment through a combination of two drugs. Their study, published in eLife, suggests that this targeted therapy could potentially cure nearly all cancer types under specific conditions. They emphasize the need for both drugs to be administered simultaneously to prevent cancer from developing resistance, a common issue with traditional single-drug therapies. Their mathematical model, based on extensive data from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, shows that if the mutant genes providing resistance overlap for both drugs, treatment is likely to fail. The researchers aim to create drugs that require two independent mutations for cancer resistance, significantly increasing the chances of effective treatment. Bozic estimates that most patients could be cured with a two-drug combination, and in cases with extensive cancer, a three-drug regimen may be necessary. The researchers believe that with ongoing efforts in drug development, particularly in Cambridge, the landscape of cancer treatment may dramatically improve within the next 50 years, changing its outcome from a lethal illness to a manageable one, similar to advancements seen in bacterial infection treatment over the past century.
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