Patients with various cancers are treated with conventional chemotherapeutic drugs and the majority responds well to such therapies. However, there is a subset of patients who does not respond initially and another subset who no longer responds to further treatments. Clearly, in those two subsets of patients, the cancer cells exhibit mechanisms of resistance. One of the main challenges facing us to date is to develop new therapies to treat patients with the resistant tumors. The development of new effective therapies will be dependent on delineating the biochemical, molecular, and genetic mechanisms that regulate tumor cell resistance. Such mechanisms have revealed gene products that directly regulate resistance and are targets for therapy. Of interest, several FDA-approved drugs were able to overcome drug resistance and have been successfully used clinically. They have been used as monotherapy or synergized with other therapies for the treatment of resistant tumors. This volume constitutes a total of twelve selective reviews by pioneer scientists in the field of cancer drug resistance. Specific mechanisms in drug resistance are reviewed and novel approaches are being proposed for therapeutic interventions. This volume is of general interest to scientists, clinicians, health care providers, and students.

Autorentext
Dr. Benjamin Bonavida is a professor at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine for the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, & Molecular Genetics. His other appointments include being a member of the Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program, Member of the National Cancer Institute's SPORE Program, member of the International Scientific Advisory Board of the Israel Cancer Research Foundation, to name a few. He's currently a scientific reviewer for several journals and a member of editorial boards including Journal of Clinical Immunology, International Journal of Oncology, and Cancer Biotherapy & Radiopharmaceuticals. In his career, he's published over 450 papers and reviews, and he's also edited two books with Springer in the past. For more information, please see the CV attached herewith.

Zusammenfassung
This volume gives the latest developments in on the mechanisms of cancer cell resistance to apoptotic stimuli, which eventually result in cancer progression and metastasis. One of the main challenges in cancer research is to develop new therapies to combat resistant tumors. The development of new effective therapies will be dependent on delineating the biochemical, molecular, and genetic mechanisms that regulate tumor cell resistance to cytotoxic drug-induced apoptosis. These mechanisms should reveal gene products that directly regulate resistance in order to develop new drugs that target these resistance factors and such new drugs may either be selective or common to various cancers. If successful, new drugs may not be toxic and may be used effectively in combination with subtoxic conventional drugs to achieve synergy and to reverse tumor cell resistance. The research developments presented in this book can be translated to produce better clinical responses to resistant tumors.

Inhalt
Preface.- Multidrug resistance in cancer: a tale of ABC drug transporters.- Multidrug resistance: a role for membrane physics, pH and drug transporters.- Mechanisms and potential therapies for acquired resistance to inhibitors targeting the Raf or MEK kinases in cancer.- Mechanisms of resistance to targeted B-Raf therapies.- Role of 1integrins in the complication and drug resistance against lung cancer: targeting 1integrins to eradicate lung cancer.- Aldo-keto reductases as new therapeutic targets for colon cancer chemoresistance.- Overcoming drug resistance through elevation of ROS in cancer.- Cancer stem cells in resistance to cytotoxic drugs: implications in chemotherapy.- Two birds with a stone: molecular cancer therapy targeting signal transduction and DNA repair pathways.- Collateral sensitivity in drug-resistant tumor cells.- Human cancer resistance to trail-apoptotic pathway-targeted therapies.- The dark side of apoptosis.- Index.