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The NCI Human Tumor Cell Line (60-Cell) Screen

Concept, Implementation, and Applications

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Anticancer Drug Development Guide

Part of the book series: Cancer Drug Discovery and Development ((CDD&D))

Abstract

This chapter is not intended to provide a comprehensive review of applications of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) 60-cell screen to anticancer drug discovery and development. The literature is now replete with such examples, given the NCI operation and provision of the screen to researchers worldwide for well over a decade. Selected examples are used here to illuminate the kind of output that has been routinely available from the screen and to show how some of the simplest applications of this output have been and perhaps remain of substantial utility to researchers engaged in the challenging and uncertain field of anticancer drug discovery and development. Readers may also wish to examine and consider the current operational details, as well as the wealth of related information and research tools based on the 60-cell screen, now provided by the NCI Developmental Therapeutics Program (DTP) at its internet website (http://dtp.nci.nih.gov). What follows here is intended as an historical and personal perspective on how the 60-cell screen came to be and the value and legitimacy of the screen as a research tool. I attempt to convey a sense of the breadth and depth of the diverse participants and their contributions to the screen’ s conceptual development, implementation, and oversight, and I offer one participant’ s view of obstacles encountered, choices and compromises made, and other issues that may have contributed to the utility as well as limitations of the current screen.

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Authors
  1. Michael R. Boyd MD, PhD
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oncology Discovery and Research, Genzyme Corporation, Framingham, MA, USA

    Beverly A. Teicher PhD (Vice President and Director of Oncology Portfolio) (Vice President and Director of Oncology Portfolio)

  2. Preclinical Sciences, Aton Pharma Inc., Tarrytown, NY, USA

    Paul A. Andrews PhD (Senior Director) (Senior Director)

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© 2004 Humana Press Inc., Totowa, NJ

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Boyd, M.R. (2004). The NCI Human Tumor Cell Line (60-Cell) Screen. In: Teicher, B.A., Andrews, P.A. (eds) Anticancer Drug Development Guide. Cancer Drug Discovery and Development. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59259-739-0_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59259-739-0_3

  • Publisher Name: Humana Press, Totowa, NJ

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4684-9841-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-59259-739-0

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