Bioinformatic tools for cancer geneticists

Abstract

Early detection is essential for the control and prevention of many diseases, particularly cancer, which is the reason why the need for new disease markers with improved sensitivity and specificity continues to grow. Utilization of sophisticated bioinformatic tools enables the increased specificity and a relatively large quantity of high quality assays for any gene of interest. Understanding the molecular characteristics of diseases, such as cancer and the detection of mutations or changes in gene expression patterns that occur as a result of the disease, will bring researchers one step closer to achieving the predictive power needed for the development of new therapies, the design of clinical trials, and specific patient treatment planning. Genetic screening is one of the fastest moving areas of medical science, particularly in oncology, and as more genes are cloned, and more disease-associated mutations discovered, the workload is set to increase considerably with the utilization of bioinformatics tools used in integration and analysis of genomic, proteomic and metabolomic profiles of cancer. © 2005, Institute of Oncology Sremska Kamenica.