Over the last few decades, targeted therapies have grown in importance as powerful weapons in the cancer-fighting arsenal.
Targeted therapies are more precise than many other cancer treatments, focusing on proteins that control how cancer cells grow and spread. Unlike traditional chemotherapy, which can damage healthy cells as it attacks cancer cells, targeted therapies go after cancer cells and mostly leaves normal cells alone.
To learn more about targeted therapies and how they’re used against cancer, we turned to Urs Weber, MD, a University of Colorado Anschutz Cancer Center member who specializes in treating lung cancer and finding new therapies. Weber is an assistant professor of medicine in the CU Anschutz Division of Medical Oncology.