A global team of scientists has unveiled a promising new strategy to combat cancers that stop responding to conventional therapies, offering fresh hope for patients with advanced disease. The research was led by Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science and focuses on an unconventional idea: using the genetic changes that drive drug resistance as targets for treatment.
One of the most difficult obstacles in oncology is treatment failure. In many metastatic cancers, therapies that initially shrink tumours gradually lose their effectiveness as cancer cells evolve and acquire new mutations, allowing the disease to progress unchecked. According to a report by Xinhua news agency, the researchers explored how these resistance-related mutations could be transformed from a liability into a therapeutic opportunity.
The study, published in the journal Cancer Discovery, outlines a novel approach that directly addresses cancer resistance. Instead of trying to bypass or suppress resistant mutations, the scientists proposed exploiting them to trigger immune responses against tumour cells.
Central to this approach is a newly developed computational platform known as SpotNeoMet. The tool scans genetic data to detect drug-resistance mutations that are commonly found across many patients. These mutations produce small protein fragments, called neo-antigens, which appear exclusively on cancer cells and not on healthy tissue.
Because these neo-antigens are shared among multiple patients, they could serve as targets for next-generation immunotherapies designed to help the immune system precisely recognise and destroy cancer cells.
“Our research demonstrates a broad principle that may change the way we think about treatment-resistant cancer,” said Professor Yardena Samuels of the Weizmann Institute.
“The same mutations that allow a tumour to evade a drug can, through precise immunotherapy, become the cancer’s weak point. Unlike ‘boutique’ immunotherapies that must be tailored to individual patients, these therapies could be suitable for large groups of patients,” she added.
To validate the concept, the researchers applied their method to metastatic prostate cancer, a condition in which resistance to standard treatments eventually develops in most patients. Through laboratory studies and experiments in mouse models, the team identified three neo-antigens that showed encouraging anti-cancer responses.
The researchers emphasized that this strategy differs fundamentally from highly personalized cancer treatments. By focusing on resistance mutations shared across patient populations, the same therapeutic approach could potentially be used to treat many individuals with drug-resistant cancers, broadening access and impact.
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