ABSTRACT
Anti-cancer drugs should ideally kill cancer cells, and leave normal cells in peace. This paramount goal is extremely challenging because cancer cells have few demonstrable biochemical differences with normal cells, and because of the large diversity among cancer cells (see Chapter 2). Historically, cancer drugs have targeted proteins active in rapidly proliferating cells, such as metabolic enzymes active in cell division or DNA polymerase and topoisomerase important for DNA replication. Unfortunately, these processes are not specific to cancer cells and the corresponding drugs also hit all normal cells having a rapid turnover such as skin, hair, gastrointestinal and bone marrow, leading to the many common side effects associated with cancer chemotherapy.
