Anti-cancer drugs of today and tomorrow: are we close to making the turn from treating to curing cancer?

Therapeutic management of cancer has undergone tremendous conceptual advance over the last couple of decades. Not only are we better acquainted with the intricate mechanisms leading to oncogenic transformation, but also the strategies to intercept and disturb these command and control pathways are becoming more specific and target-selective. One critical change is the realization that despite the existence of diverse mechanisms for the development of different sub-sets of cancers, there may indeed be central regulatory networks that serve as a common denominator in all forms of neoplasia. These critical events could endow cells with the potential for unabated proliferation, insensitivity to death inducing signals, and enhanced metastatic potential. Thus, developing strategies to target these critical events or pathways should significantly improve the outcome of cancer chemotherapy. The purpose of this review is to briefly discuss the complexities of the disease, highlight the current therapeutic strategies, and more importantly provide a mechanistic approach for future drug design aimed at targeting the traits of the disease and for favorably tailoring the response of cancer cells to drug therapy.