Perlegen, Johns Hopkins Awarded Grant for Analysis of the Cancer Genome

Perlegen Sciences has been awarded a grant from the National Cancer Institute to study tumor-specific DNA mutations involved in colorectal cancer in collaboration with the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins.

The research could lead to a better understanding of the disease, improved tools for cancer detection and diagnosis, new targets for therapeutic and preventive intervention, and opportunities for more individualized treatment.

In an effort to identify and characterize cancer genes, the team will analyze at single-base resolution the DNA sequences of thousands of genes in colorectal tumor tissue as well as in normal tissue from the same patients. This effort is expected to lead to the identification of a significant number of tumor-specific mutations, providing insight into the cause of disease.