'Wildly heterogeneous genes: New approach subtypes cancers by shared genetic effects; a step toward personalized medicine
Sunday, September 15, 2013 - 13:30
in Health & Medicine
Cancer tumors almost never share the exact same genetic mutations, a fact that has confounded scientific efforts to better categorize cancer types and develop more targeted, effective treatments. Researchers propose a new approach called network-based stratification, which identifies cancer subtypes not by the singular mutations of individual patients, but by how those mutations affect shared genetic networks or systems.