Identifying new targets for personalised cancer therapy

Personalised medicine requires the use of patient‐specific information to predict individual responses to disease treatment. Consequently, this approach requires the diagnostic ability to stratify patients based on their potential to benefit from a specific treatment (as opposed to an alternative) and the availability of molecularly targeted therapies. On the basis of the heterogeneity of the disease, cancer diagnosis and therapy is currently at the forefront of personalised medicine. Cancer therapy is currently undergoing a significant paradigm change, from nonspecific cytotoxic agents to considerably more specific approaches based on the unique molecular features of cancer cells. The identification and validation of disease relevant targets is crucial for the development of molecularly targeted anticancer therapies. Our advancing understanding of the molecular basis of cancer in tandem with novel approaches to interfere with signal transduction pathways have opened new horizons for anticancer target discovery. Specifically, the image‐based large‐scale analysis of cellular phenotypes that arise from genetic or chemical perturbations paved the way for the identification and validation of disease relevant molecular targets independent of preconceived notions of mechanistic relationships.