The Challenge of Traditional Cancer Therapies — and the Promise of Molecular Insights

Chemotherapy and radiation remain cornerstones of cancer care, but their foundation rests on an outdated assumption: that cancer cells divide more frequently than normal ones. In reality, many healthy cells — in the gut lining, hair follicles, and bone marrow — also divide rapidly, leading to the harsh side effects of treatment: nausea, hair loss, and immune suppression.

These therapies are indiscriminate. Even at the “maximum tolerated dose,” more healthy cells are destroyed than cancerous ones. Meanwhile, cancer cells adapt, evolving resistance mutations that make them harder to kill with each cycle. Often, even when imaging shows no visible tumor, the disease persists at the molecular level — only to re-emerge in a more resistant form.

The promise of precision therapies is to target cancer more selectively. Decades of research have revealed pathways linked to proliferation, inflammation, metabolism, and invasion — enabling the development of targeted agents. Yet in practice, these therapies underperform because they lack equally precise diagnostics to guide their use. A gene mutation does not always mean the pathway is active.

That’s where platelet proteomics comes in. By capturing the proteins that reflect cancer’s active pathways, platelet proteomics can detect relapse earlier, reveal mechanisms of resistance, and guide therapy choices in real time. They provide the most dynamic, accurate, and actionable insights — making true precision medicine possible.