Pharmaco-Therapeutic Challenges in Cancer Biology with Focus on the Immune- System Related Risk Factors

Over the past, progress has always been achieved in therapy of various human diseases with the introduction of novel methodologies from basic to clinical research. Recent advances in techniques, especially DNA sequencing and methylation analyses, faster miniaturized proteomics and live cellular stainings, are opening a new era in cancer research. Perhaps the difference this time can be envisaged as the beginning of the long-sought individualization of forthcoming cancer therapies. Cancer has complex genetic susceptibility that is wider than previously thought. Apart from genes encoding six functional capabilities of cancer – independent growth, avoidance of apoptosis, immortalization, multi-drug resistance, neovascularization, and invasiveness - predisposition includes four more factors that promote genome instability, inflammation, deregulation of metabolism as well as evasion of destruction by the immune system. The underlying genetic events, i.e. base-pair DNA mutations, are not the sole factors in cancer development. Additional novel controls of gene expression have been found in the epigenetic machinery, which has been increasingly important in assessing cancer risk in recent years. The predisposing factors, including their regulatory elements, are bona fide potential new targets in prospective cancer pharmacotherapy.