One of the many outcomes of the human genome program has been the need to develop high-throughput technologies for analyzing many genes and proteins at once. High-throughput biology research has now become routine with the development of cDNA microarray technologies that enable analyses of expression of thousands of genes at once. As useful as this is, the cDNA microarray data often only provide hypotheses to be tested in future studies or candidate target genes whose involvement in a biological or clinical process should be further investigated. Often the number of these genes to be tested is in the range of hundreds or thousands. Translational Genomics Section is developing novel tools, technologies and bioninformatic solutions for validating functional genomics data of cancer. The following four approaches are utilized: 1) Results from different kinds of biochips are integrated to define the most important gene targets first. For example, we are utilizing data from gene copy number (by CGH microarrays) to prioritize genes that may be targets of a genetic rearrangement in cancer. 2) New high-throughput functional validation are being developed, such as the use of cell arrays to test the function of hundreds of genes at once on the cell phenotype. 3) Pharmacogenomic profiling of cancer cell lines is performed to identify genes, pathways and molecular mechanisms that are important for therapy response. 4) We are developing bioinformatic tools to visualize gene expression data and integrate such data with results from other biochip technologies.
