The February issue of Genome Research includes a range of papers describing the genomic and epigenomic profiling of various cancer types. The publications cover: the identification of genomic markers to be used in disease diagnosis and monitoring; the use of next-generation sequencing tools to characterize the cancer mutational landscape; a study of the interplay of DNA methylation and chromatin dynamics in cancer; and a description of computational resources for analysing sequence, pathway and network data. The issue also contains commentaries from leading researchers on the translational potential of the new findings.