When Development Goes Awry: How Cancer Co-opts Mechanisms of Embryogensis, MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW)

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Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
77 Massachusetts Avenue,
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307,

Course Description,
During this course, we will study the similarities between cancer and normal development to understand how tumors co-opt normal developmental processes to facilitate cancer initiation, maintenance and progression. We will examine critical signaling pathways that govern these processes and, importantly, how some of these pathways hold promise as therapeutic targets for cancer treatment. We will discuss how future treatments might be personalized to target cancer cells in specific patients. We will also consider examples of newly-approved drugs that have dramatically helped patients combat this devastating disease.