Somatic cancer mutations across populations

PL06-01

Although evidence for divergent cancer biology among different ethnic populations has accrued for decades, in many cases the molecular basis for such differences remains unresolved. Progress in this arena may stem from recent advances in cancer genomics approaches. Indeed, cancer represents a disease of the genome, in that each cancer contains a unique set of altered oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. Recent large-scale surveys of tumor somatic genetic alterations have begun to shed light on the types of molecular changes that might underlie ethnic differences in cancer behavior. This talk will describe examples of causal tumor genetic changes that vary with ethnicity, as well as emerging high-throughput approaches that may enable comprehensive cancer gene mutation profiling across ethnic groups in the future. Elucidating the relationship between cancer biology and ethnicity will likely comprise an important step towards individualized cancer medicine.