Proteomics and the development of precision medicines against cancer (Part 1)

Cancer is a heterogenous mixture of diseases characterized by, among other things, the abnormal, uncontrolled growth of cells derived from otherwise healthy tissues (Hanahan 2022). Although cancer cells sometimes grow into balls of cells and stop there (so-called benign tumors), often they gain the ability to disperse throughout the body, seed the growth of other tumors, disrupt the function of a variety of organs, and ultimately kill patients. In this series of blog posts, we discuss how proteomics can drive the creation and use of “precision medicines” that target the processes enabling cancer growth and stop cancer in its tracks.