A multi-center team, led by Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center investigators, has discovered a "signature" of proteins in the blood that predicts which non-small-cell lung cancer patients will live longer when they are treated with certain targeted cancer therapies.

A new method for determining biomarkers could allow physicians to personalize lung or brain cancer therapy and lower the risk of unnecessary radiation treatments. Researchers at Vanderbilt University are using a biomarker library of peptides to determine whether or not tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy, combined with radiation therapy, is indeed effective against lung or brain cancer.