Ó³»­´«Ã½

Boston Globe reporter Carolyn Johnson writes on today's about the push to target cancer with new therapies — among many specialists, the piece quotes Todd Golub, director of the Ó³»­´«Ã½'s Cancer Program. Todd and other colleagues discussed the Ó³»­´«Ã½'s approach to cancer research in the new Annual Report:

• Develop a comprehensive catalogue of all mutations in a tumor, in order to understand how genes collaborate to drive the disease;

• "Turn on" and "turn off" all the genes in many cancer cell lines, to understand the genetic vulnerability of cancer; and

• Apply genome-inspired thinking to cancer drug discovery.

This approach will allow scientists to understand the genes that are true "drivers" of cancer — knowledge that will be useful therapeutically. Ó³»­´«Ã½ associate members Lynda Chin, Levi Garraway, and Matthew Meyerson (all of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute) are leading this effort, which is part of TCGA (The Cancer Genome Atlas) and the International Cancer Genome Consortium. Data generated by the Ó³»­´«Ã½ will be available to scientists throughout the global cancer research community.