Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- Introduction
- 1 Lessons from epidemiology
- 2 Causes of cancer
- 3 Signalling in normal cells
- 4 ‘Cancer genes’: mutations and cancer development
- 5 What is a tumour?
- 6 Cancer signalling networks
- 7 The future of cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment
- 8 The future of cancer in the post-genomic era
- Appendix A Tumour grading and staging
- Appendix B Targets of specific anti-cancer drugs
- Appendix C Classes of major oncoproteins
- Appendix D Major tumour suppressor genes
- Appendix E Ten major cancers at a glance
- Glossary and abbreviations
- Bibliography
- Index
- Plate Section
8 - The future of cancer in the post-genomic era
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword
- Introduction
- 1 Lessons from epidemiology
- 2 Causes of cancer
- 3 Signalling in normal cells
- 4 ‘Cancer genes’: mutations and cancer development
- 5 What is a tumour?
- 6 Cancer signalling networks
- 7 The future of cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment
- 8 The future of cancer in the post-genomic era
- Appendix A Tumour grading and staging
- Appendix B Targets of specific anti-cancer drugs
- Appendix C Classes of major oncoproteins
- Appendix D Major tumour suppressor genes
- Appendix E Ten major cancers at a glance
- Glossary and abbreviations
- Bibliography
- Index
- Plate Section
Summary
The unveiling of the sequence of DNA in the human genome in 2003 was one of the most dramatic milestones in the history of science. Nevertheless, even in the immediate aftermath of that event it would have been difficult to predict the extraordinary advances of the following eight years that now permit individual genomes to be sequenced with great rapidity at low cost and have prompted an endeavour to compile a database of 10,000 complete cancer genomes. Within that period whole genome sequencing has revealed new cancer genes and promoted the development of novel drugs. It has illuminated hitherto unsuspected flexibility in human DNA, provided alternative strategies for the classification of tumours and already begun to change the treatment regimes that are offered to patients by clinicians. Taken together with the advances described in the previous chapter, an armoury of great breadth and sophistication can now be deployed for the detection, classification and treatment of cancer.
Human genome sequencing
The draft sequence of the human genome was largely completed by April 2003 in a phenomenal achievement that required quite stunning developments both of sequencing machines, robotics to handle clones and computing power to process the data and make it easily usable by the scientific community. Since 2003, equally dramatic technical advances have produced an almost unbelievable increase in the rate at which sequences can be obtained. These new technologies are called ‘next-generation’ or ‘second-generation’ sequencing and permit rapid, so-called ‘massively parallel’ sequencing of complete genomes in a single experiment. Efficient though second-generation sequencing is, it may be about to be overhauled by ‘third-generation’ sequencing in which an accurate sequence can be obtained without sequencing thousands of copies (Box 8.1).
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- Introduction to Cancer Biology , pp. 209 - 240Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012