See Inside The torrents of data flowing out of cancer research and treatment are yielding fresh insight into the disease BRENDAN MONROE In 2013, geneticist Stephen Elledge answered a question that had puzzled cancer researchers for nearly 100 years. In 1914, German biologist Theodor Boveri suggested that the abnormal number of chromosomes called aneuploidy seen in cancers might drive the growth of tumours. For most of the next century, researchers made little progress on the matter. They knew that cancers often have extra or missing chromosomes or pieces of chromosomes, but they did not know whether this was important or simply a by-product of tumour growth and they had no way of finding out. People had ignored it for a long time, primarily because it's really hard to understand, says Elledge, of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. What we didn't know before is that it's actually driving cancer. Elledge found that where aneuploidy had resulted in missing tumour-suppressor genes, or extra copies of the oncogenes that promote cancer, tumours grow more aggressively (T. Davoli et al. Cell 155, 948962; 2013). His insight that aneuploidy is not merely an odd feature of tumours, but an engine of their growth … Continue reading →

Mark Guyer has retired from his post as deputy director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. Guyer joined the Office of Human Genome Research, the institute's precursor, in 1998, and he helped guide NHGRI's research activities from the earliest days of the Human Genome Project. He became director of the NHGRI Division of Extramural Research, now the Extramural Research Program, and he has had a hand in establishing programs such as the 1,000 Genomes Project; the Large-Scale Genome Sequencing and Analysis Centers; the Ethical, Legal and Social Implications research program; and The Cancer Genome Atlas project, among others. Omicia has appointed Heidi Rehm, Geoffrey Ginsberg, Thomas Quertermous, and Mark Yandell to its scientific advisory board. Rehm is director of the Laboratory for Molecular Medicine at Partners Healthcare Personalized Medicine and associate professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School. Ginsberg is director of genomic medicine at the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy, executive director of Duke's Center for Personalized Medicine and Precision, and a professor of medicine and biomedical engineering. Quertermous is the William G. Irwin professor of medicine and director of research for the division of cardiovascular medicine at Stanford University. Yandell is co-director of the University … Continue reading →