Genetic Analysis of Tumor Samples and Generation of Cell Line Models 

Changes or modifications in the cancer genome contribute to the generation of tumors   and potential metastasis of cancer cells.  In order to devise new therapies and identify better ways to predict and treat potential outcomes, scientists need to have a better understanding of these changes in tumor samples.   Differences in the tumor properties, the genetic and physical make-up of the patient and response to any given treatment also need to be studied in order to fully understand differences of each cancer in patients.

This work, directed by Dr. Andrew Futreal and Dr. Tim Heffernan at MD Anderson Cancer Center, is overcoming major obstacles to research by studying the cancer genome and when possible, to develop cell lines, which are used as model systems to study diseases.  These areas are particularly important for rare cancer studies, where scientists are significantly limited in the ability to do research because there is not enough information on the cancer genome or models of each type of rare cancer to understand each disease.