Date of Publication :20th April 2017

Abstract: One of the greatest challenges faced by the cancer researchers is that the disease varies so much from individual to individual. Even the same type of cancer – blood, brain, kidney, pancreas, and so on – can be different subtly. This concludes that a therapy working excellent in one patient may have absolutely no effect in another. Cancer Research worldwide has set up several centers and started collecting 9,000 tumor cells’ samples from a wide range of cancer patients and created a DNA database of cancerous cells. Researchers extract DNA from these tumors and scan them for a series of key genes involved in tumor development and compares & cross-checked against a range of cancer treatments, cancerous genes, to create a map of which treatments in particular works best for cancers associated with which particular genes. This is based on the concept of pharmacogenomics & pharmacoinformatics: certain genes predispose individual to respond to certain molecules in certain ways. Doctors can already test a cancer patient for a single known gene, knowing how tumors with that gene respond to a particular molecule. However currently they don’t have a way of testing with a broad panel or set of genes. And to compensate the problem, they don’t have a way of quicker and more accurate way of sharing information in-between research labs in the same city, across the country or internationally. With the proposed cancer DNA database, a doctor might analyze a patient’s cancerous tumor sample and prescribe a detailed tailored treatment plan within a very short period of time. Bioinformatics research is increasing steadily at an exponential rate. DNA sequences are available to researchers with just an Internet connection – along with free bioinformatics tools to explore any sequence data, predict the presence of genes/mutated genes, and compare features shared between various organisms

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