Cancer Gene Census paves the way for improvements in personalised medicine

Researchers at the Wellcome Sanger Institute have created the first comprehensive summary of all genes known to be involved in human cancer, the Cancer Gene Census. Describing all genes strongly implicated in causing cancer, the Census also describes how they function across all forms of this disease. Reported in Nature Reviews Cancer, the resource catalogs over 700 genes, to help scientists understand the causes of cancers, find drug targets and design treatments.
The study characterizes the increasing understanding that many genes have multiple different roles in different cancers. This paves the way for improvements in personalized medicine, and building combinations of anti-cancer drugs for any given set of genetic functions or mutations.
To address this, researchers working with the Catalogue of Somatic Mutations in Cancer (COSMIC) have created the Cancer Gene Census. While the COSMIC database characterizes over 1,500 different forms of human cancer and types of mutations, the Cancer Gene Census describes which genes are fundamentally involved and describes how these genes cause disease.