Anticipating designer drug-resistant cancer cells

Successful use of anticancer designer drugs is likely to depend on simultaneous combinations of these drugs to minimize the development of resistant cancer cells. Considering the knowledge base of cancer signaling pathways, mechanisms of designer drug resistance should be anticipated, and early clinical trials could be designed to include arms that combine new drugs specifically with currently US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved drugs expected to blunt alternative signaling pathways. In this review, we indicate examples of alternative signal pathways for recent anticancer drugs, and the use of original, Python-based software to systematically identify signaling pathways that could facilitate resistance to drugs targeting a particular protein. Pathway alternatives can be assessed at http://www.alternativesignalingpathways.com, developed with this review article.