Old Drug, New Tricks: Existing Medicines Show Promise in Fighting Cancer

Drugs originally developed to treat diseases ranging from diabetes to alcoholism may have applications in cancer treatment, according to a new study. Researchers tested thousands of existing medications, many of which have already been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for treating diseases other than cancer, against hundreds of different human cancer cell lines in the lab. The study revealed dozens of newly identified cancer-killing compounds.

Lead author Steven Corsello practices oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and researches new cancer drug development at the Broad Institute of...