Strategies for targeted tumor assessment and elimination: The physician-scientist and the blossoming of molecular medicine in urologic oncology

To realize its full potential in treating urologic malignancies, molecular medicine in the post-genomic era requires the science of molecular biology to become a great force of change directed to the critical health questions confronting the clinician. The clinician-scientist is the linchpin to convert an exploratory, reactive stance to a predictive and efficacious paradigm in treating urologic malignancies. The explosion of basic and translational discoveries will demand a “systems biology” approach at the fingertips of the future clinician, and realize the dream of proactive and highly adaptable “engineered” response to the very complex “survival” biology of urologic tumors. To arm our clinicians of tomorrow, the physician-scientists of today need resources, time, and a nurturing environment to ask great questions, and, thus, to solve the problem of cancer.