"Abstract Aim: To identify a gene and protein expression pattern associated with platinum resistance and taxane sensitivity in a panel of drug-resistant cancer cell lines. Background: Despite the success of early detection programs and surgical techniques for the treatment of cancer many patients will still require chemotherapy. Initial responsiveness to chemotherapy is high, however the majority of patients ultimately relapse with resistant disease. This research proposal will examine resistance to two commonly used classes of chemotherapy, platinums and taxanes. When cancer cells become resistant to platinum chemotherapy they often become sensitive to taxanes and vice versa. This inverse relationship happens in all cancer types and the mechanism of this relationship is not understood. Research Project: This project will study gene and protein expression in a large panel of drug resistant cell lines in an attempt to understand the mechanism of the inverse resistance relationship between platinums and taxanes. This process will discover a set of molecular markers predicting the inverse relationship between platinum and taxanes. These have the potential to be translated to the clinic and be used to identify patients likely to respond to platinum or taxane chemotherapy. Outcomes: The success of research projects like the one described in this application have the potential to revolutionise cancer therapy by individually tailoring chemotherapy. This will significantly increase the response rate of both platinum and taxane chemotherapy as it will allow the identification of patients likely to respond to treatment. Patients identified as being resistant to both agents could then be treated with alternative chemotherapy. The understanding of the mechanism of the inverse resistance relationship may also reveal new targets for cancer therapy."