Abstract

NGS Revolution: An Essential Part of an Overall Plan of Attack against Cancer

Amit Dutt, Assistant Professor & Principal Investigator, Tata Memorial Centre

Massively parallel Next Generation DNA sequencing technologies has made technically feasible to interrogate the complete set of genomic alterations in a tumor in a systematic, comprehensive manner in a single run. These methodologies are beginning to transform diagnostics by allowing cancers to be classified based on molecular mechanism and allowing clinical trials to be undertaken on more homogeneous groups of patients; and, therapeutics by sparking a new generation of drugs targeted at the molecular alterations that cause cancer. Advances made by Dutt Laboratory leading to the establishment of TMC-SNPdb, first Indian SNP db, to facilitate cancer research using genomics data from Indian origin samples, along with discovery of novel molecular subclasses, new therapeutic targets and biomarkers for clinical development in head and neck and lung carcinoma will be presented.