The Genomic Revolution

Understanding of the inner workings of the human body took a major leap forward through the Human Genome Project. This huge 13-year project, led by the National Human Genome Research Institute of the National Institutes of Health, successfully sequenced and mapped the entire collection of DNA in human beings, known collectively as the genome. This achievement was important because DNA serves as the basic instruction manual for genes, which in turn control the body’s construction of the proteins that regulate most life functions and cellular structure.

With the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003, scientists and researchers now have a detailed blueprint of the body’s genetic composition, motivating extensive genetic insights about the hereditary predispositions people have to certain diseases and how they will react to particular therapies.

Much of this research has been enabled by new technologies that facilitate and accelerate the production of meaningful data related to genetics and the causes of specific cancers. Among these innovations is the DNA sequencing technology, which uses advanced supercomputers and complex algorithms to enable the rapid generation of large-scale maps of key sections of DNA. Other technology advances – in the use of human biospecimens; in nanotechnology and proteomics; and in bioinformatics and robotics – are beginning to converge, thereby increasing the output of cancer research data and improving the speed, accuracy, and reproducibility of cancer research techniques.

Advances in biology and new high-throughput technologies are generating massive amounts of data that overwhelm the current information technology infrastructure. The challenge is to build a common capability that enables a more efficient translation of data into knowledge that leads to new and effective treatments.