From the blog of Dr. Robert A. Nagourney of Rational Therapeutics
A report published in Cell from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute describes a technique to measure drug 
induced cell death in cell lines and human cancer cells. The method “Dynamic BH3 profiling” uses an oligopeptidic BIM to gauge the degree to which cancer cells are “primed” to die following exposure to drugs and signal transduction inhibitors. The results are provocative and suggest that in cell lines and some human primary tissues, the method may select for sensitivity and resistance.
We applaud these investigators’ recognition of the importance of phenotypic measures in drug discovery and drug selection and agree with the points that they raise regarding the superiority of functional platforms over static (omic) measures performed on paraffin fixed tissues. It is heartening that scientists from so august an institution as Dana-Farber should come to the same understanding of human cancer biology that many dedicated researchers had pioneered over the preceding five decades.
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