Dr Berns talks about his recent review published in ecancermedicalscience, on the progress of targeted therapies for lung cancer.

He explains how these targeted therapies work, by inhibiting mutated proteins with small molecules.

He goes on to stress that, for a given protein, there could be many small molecules that can be used to inhibit them, but that these do not all work in the same way and are not all of equal efficacy.

He argues that many chemotherapies can be regarded as a form of targeted therapy, even though we don't necessarily understand the mechanism of action. Furthermore, many chemotherapies are very effective, he says, such as herceptin among others.

He also discusses the problem of resistance associated with some targeted therapies, and the limited relief they currently offer.

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