New patients admitted to the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center will now have their tumors molecularly profiled to personalize their cancer treatment. The Boston hospital is the first to incorporate tumor genotyping as part of standard patient care. The aim is to conduct targeted DNA sequencing of all positive biopsies and tumors within one year. “In the short term, what we are trying to do is to identify specific molecular alterations in [a patient's] particular tumor that can then be matched with their specific therapy,” says Darrell Borger, the lab's codirector. Tumor profiles will be obtained from a genotyping platform including more than 110 single nucleotide polymorphisms known to be present in human cancer genes, ten of which have targeted therapies either commercially available or in clinical trials. Most of these mutations are in the usual cancer suspects—KRAS, TP53 and EGFR. The plan is to complete the tumor's molecular profiling within two to three weeks of a patient's admission, enabling physicians to prescribe targeted therapies. Gary Schwartz, chief of Melanoma and Sarcoma Services at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, says, “As the technology becomes standardized, the costs will come down and this methodology will become part of the standard of cancer care.”