Personalized Cancer Medicine

Cancer is a complex disease occurring as a result of a progressive accumulation of genetic aberrations and epigenetic changes that enable escape from normal cellular and environmental controls. Over the past 20 years, technological advances in molecular biology have proven invaluable to the understanding of the pathogenesis of human cancer. The application of molecular technology to the study of cancer has not only led to advances in tumour diagnosis, but has also provided markers for the assessment of prognosis and disease progression. The mechanisms for controlling when and how a eukaryotic cell divides are fundamental to the biology of multicellular organisms. Abnormal regulation can provide a driver for disease processes, not the least, cancer. The aim of this book is to provide an overview of the strategies in cancer prevention in as molecular and functional entities, together with both their involvement in different disease processes and their potential for pharmacological modulation.