From Duke: Lung cancer and genomic signatures

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21543798

Proc Am Thorac Soc. 2011 May;8(2):180-2.
Pathway-based classification of lung cancer: a strategy to guide therapeutic selection.
Nevins JR.
Source
Duke Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, 27708. j.nevins@duke.edu.
Abstract
The critical challenge in virtually all cancer research is heterogeneity: "Breast cancer" and "lung cancer" are actually collections of disease with distinct molecular mechanisms and clinical characteristics. The challenge is evident in the complexity of most cancers with multiple mutations and alterations generating the cancer phenotype, requiring therapeutic strategies that can match the complexity with equally complex combination regimens. Substantial progress in treatment requires major advances in methods to define refined, "common mechanism" subgroups to allow development of combination therapeutics that target these individual mechanisms. Our work is on the use of genomic signatures of oncogenic signaling pathways that provide an opportunity to dissect the complexity of lung cancer and to serve as tools to direct the use of targeted therapeutic agents.