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89Molecular targetThe most common treatments for cancer include surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. Targeted therapy has received much media attention due to its mild side effects and outstanding effectiveness when combined with other types of cancer treatments. Targeted therapy uses drugs or other chemicals to precisely identify and attack certain types of cancer cells. One way to do this is to target specific molecules that cancer cells need to survive and spread. These are called molecular targets. Cancer cells are constantly undergoing a series of chemical processes. By identifying the proteins or molecules that are uniquely used or needed by cancer cells, but not by healthy cells, cancer cells can be killed or their growth can be blocked by removing these specific molecules without affecting the healthy cells. Other pathways of targeted therapy include blocking chemical signals that cancer cells need to grow blood vessels, delivering cell-killing substances to cancer cells, and instructing the immune system to find and kill cancer cells. Dr Ma%u2019s team uses zebrafish as model organisms because they share similar chemical pathways and protein metabolisms with humans. By introducing cancer mutations into zebrafish, the team can model human cancer and determine the molecular signatures of cancer cells. This will lead to the identification of new molecular targets to detect and treat cancers.HITTING THE BULLSEYE