Combating Treatment Resistance in Metastatic Cancer
There are better ways.
Solving treatment resistance involves a fundamental change in thinking.
— Christopher Gregg PhD (researcher and stage IV cancer patient)
How can we use the medicines we have in much smarter, safer, and more effective ways?
This talk was presented by Dr. Christopher Gregg at the Huntsman Cancer Institute’s Cancer Ecology & Evolution Symposium (2023) as one of a series of talks by world leaders in cancer evolution, ecology, and treatment, including Bob Gatenby, Sandy Anderson, and Joel Brown, who are focused finding ways to prevent the evolution of treatment resistance in advanced cancer patients.
Most researchers in cancer are focused on making new drugs, but for many cancers we already have effective drugs and the problem is that the disease evolves resistance to those drugs, which renders them useless and leads to patient death. Extraordinary thought leaders have come up with solutions that can help patients and doctors achieve better outcomes today.
The Cancer Patient Map
There’s no map of cancer patients to guide personalized care. This project will change that.
In the current reactive care system, doctors diagnose and try to fix problems after they happen, which is hard to do. In a new predictive care system, doctors have new tools that provide a map that shows where their patient is going, so that they can make decisions that chart the best care pathways and help avoid problems before they happen.
This project is important and urgent because we cannot build effective solutions to prevent treatment resistance without being able to accurately monitor health and treatment response changes in patients.
The Cancer Patient Map Project aims to shift cancer care from reactive care to predictive care — to get ahead of this disease and chart a course to control it. We’ll create this map of cancer and make the tools available to everyone through their smartphone.
If you’re a cancer patient at any stage, you can contribute to the map here.
A Utah Grand Challenges in Cancer Funded Project
“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”
— Carl Sagan