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Oncology and the Human Genome Project

May 22, 2001

In his keynote address to open the recent annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Dr. Richard Klausner, President of the National Cancer Institute, predicted that advances flowing from the human genome project will soon have a revolutionary impact on the treatment of cancer.

In fact, Klausner predicted that the mapping of the human genome will do for medicine what the periodic table did for the study of chemistry a century ago. "Not since the identification of DNA by Watson and Crick has the prospect for scientific advancement seemed brighter," he told the attendees. "Now the process of molecular discovery will advance at a far quicker pace as cell systems are sorted out in a comprehensive fashion."

Klausner referred to the current state of research as "the first months of the post-genome era in molecular medicine." In research laboratories worldwide, he said, advances will soon enable physicians to push cancer screening and diagnosis to levels never before imagined.

"The genome project will amplify our capacity for [cancer] detection through numerous techniques, including the powerful tool of cluster array analysis," he noted. Klausner specifically cited the example of breast cancer cells having now been subclassified into 5 distinct groups, including basal-like, erb2+, luminal subtypes A and B, and normal. Each subtype is now recognized as distinct, with different cellular properties, clinical behaviors, and survival characteristics.

Klausner predicted that the new millennium in medicine "will affect every aspect of oncology care, from planning of treatment and development of clinical trials to how responses are documented."

Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), and Dr. J. Craig Venter, the president of Celera Genomics, made similar predictions in a recent conference discussing the incredible progress being made in mapping the human genetic code. Collins heads the federal government’s DNA mapping program, while Venter is his primary counterpart in the private sector.

Within the next decade, they both agree, scientists will have a much better understanding of the major genetic factors that cause certain inherited diseases such as some cancers, diabetes and lupus. And once we have this understanding, they say, drugs will soon follow to target specific diseases in a remarkably specific—and highly effective—fashion.

The most current findings of both groups were simultaneously published in February 2001 issues of the journals Nature (The Human Genome Project) and Science (Celera Genomics).

Both Collins and Venter believe that the complete sequencing of the entire human genome will be accomplished within three years. And each of their efforts appear to be within mere months of completing broad drafts covering about 90 percent of the sequence.

SOURCES:

37th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, May 12-15, 2001, San Francisco, California

American Society of Clinical Oncology (http://www.asco.org)

National Cancer Institute (http://www.nci.nih.gov)

Science, February 16, 2001; 291:1304-1351

Nature, February 15, 2001; 409:860-921

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