title: Validating cancer drug targets.
abstract: A cancer drug target is only truly validated by demonstrating that a given therapeutic agent is clinically effective and acts through the target against which it was designed. Nevertheless, it is desirable to declare an early-stage drug target as 'validated' before investing in a full-scale drug discovery programme dedicated to it. Although the outcome of validation studies can guide cancer research programmes, strictly defined universal validation criteria have not been established.
authors.affiliation: Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, 250 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
authors.forename: John D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Benson
authors.forename: Ying-Nan P
authors.initials: YN
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Susan A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Cornell-Kennon
authors.forename: Marion
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dorsch
authors.forename: Sunkyu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Magdalena
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Leszczyniecka
authors.forename: William R
authors.initials: WR
authors.lastname: Sellers
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lengauer
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002477:Cells / Q000187:drug effects / Q000378:metabolism; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D004353:Drug Evaluation, Preclinical / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013379:Substrate Specificity