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In one of the first cases to apply the technology to clinical practice, scientists from the BC Cancer Center in Vancouver twice sequenced the genome of cancer cells in a patient with a very rare type of tumor--an adenocarcinoma of the tongue. They sequenced the DNA after the cancer had spread, and then again after it developed resistance to a drug.
Because the cancer is so rare, there were no standard courses of treatment for oncologists to choose from. So Steven Jones and collaborators used the genetic variations that they had identified, along with their knowledge of the molecular pathways that have been implicated in cancer, to create a model for what might be driving cancer in that patient. They narrowed in on a defect in a specific molecular pathway linked to cancer cell growth. The patient's physician then chose to treat him with a drug that inhibits that pathway, and the patient's tumor stopped growing for eight months. "A rare tumor is never going to have clinical trials," says Jones. "With diseases with no options, any level of information is appreciated."
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