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Big science: The cancer genome challenge

Nature volume 464, pages 972–974 (2010)Cite this article

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Databases could soon be flooded with genome sequences from 25,000 tumours. Heidi Ledford looks at the obstacles researchers face as they search for meaning in the data.

When it was first discovered, in 2006, in a study of 35 colorectal cancers1, the mutation in the gene IDH1 seemed to have little consequence. It appeared in only one of the tumours sampled, and later analyses of some 300 more have revealed no additional mutations in the gene. The mutation changed only one letter of IDH1, which encodes isocitrate dehydrogenase, a lowly housekeeping enzyme involved in metabolism. And there were plenty of other mutations to study in the 13,000 genes sequenced from each sample. "Nobody would have expected IDH1 to be important in cancer," says Victor Velculescu, a researcher at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, who had contributed to the study.

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  1. Heidi Ledford
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See also News and Views, page 989 .

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Ledford, H. Big science: The cancer genome challenge. Nature 464, 972–974 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/464972a

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