Cancer is actually hundreds of diseases, and each is complex. Each cell in our body contains all of the more than 32,000 genes found in human beings. Cancer develops when many genes or different combinations of genes change their expression. Thus, it will take not one but many drugs in combination to block the actions of these “bad” genes to create effective treatment for cancer. The best treatment for each patient can only be developed after identifying the genes that have gone bad in that individual patient. This laboratory performs a test called genomic profiling, which identifies the genes gone bad in a patient’s cancer. With this new technology, we can now determine the activity of all our genes in a patient’s cancer within a day.

Cancer is a complex disease in which key gene expression patterns regulating cell proliferation, differentiation, and cell death are altered in a normal cell to that of a dysregulated tumor cell capable of immortality.