Editorial The Cancer Genome and Diagnostic Blood Tests

According to dogma in the information era of biomedicine, more DNA sequencing and protein profiling will inevitably lead to medical progress. An overview of the genetic land-scapes of breast and colorectal cancers published online in Science on September 8, 2006 provides an opportunity to gauge how greater knowledge of the DNA sequences and the predicted transcriptomes of individual tumors may benefit efforts to prevent and cure cancer (1). Velculescu, Vogelstein, and colleagues at Johns Hopkins and other institutions sequenced 13,023 protein coding genes in the consensus coding sequence database in 11 breast and 11 colorectal cancers. Of the 13,023 genes evaluated, 1,149 were mutated, 242 were validated, and 191 were deemed candidate cancer genes (CAN genes). Usual suspects, such as APC, BRCA1, KRAS, and TP53, appear in the list but most of the CAN gene