Overcoming limitations in current measures of drug response may enable AI-driven precision oncology

Abstract Machine learning (ML) models of drug sensitivity prediction are becoming increasingly popular in precision oncology. Here, we identify a fundamental limitation in standard measures of drug sensitivity that hinders the development of personalized prediction models – they focus on absolute effects but do not capture relative differences between cancer subtypes. Our work suggests that using z-scored drug response measures mitigates these limitations and leads to meaningful predictions, opening the door for sophisticated ML precision oncology models.