The Development of Cancer Genome Research and its Clinical Opportunity brought by Next Generation Sequencing

Jun Li, Bin Wang, Hu Fang a

Abstract

Cancer has been investigated due to its high mortality ever since last century. Although chemotherapy has been traditionally used for cancer patients for a long time, the obvious side effects have prevented its further application. With the progress of DNA sequencing technology, targeted therapy has been developed by affecting targeted molecules in the signaling pathways. It could act as an alternative strategy of cancer therapeutics. In this way, cancer patients could undergo fewer side effects than traditional chemotherapy. In the 21st century, next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies have emerged to dramatically promote the cancer genome research. Recent researches have shown that the rapid discoveries of mutated cancer genes by NGS are potential to revolutionize cancer therapeutics. In the future, the development of NGS technologies is hopeful to achieve personalized therapeutics in clinic.