Predicting Cancer Outcomes from Less Data

Health care workers studying genetic sequences

Image credit: National Human Genome Research Institute

Gene expression information from tumors provides valuable information about a patient’s cancer prognosis and aids development of diagnostics and treatments. Using data from NIH’s The Cancer Genome Atlas Program, NIAID researchers have found that prognosis of some cancers can be predicted from a fraction of the gene expression sequencing data currently thought possible. This would substantially reduce the cost and time needed to gather useful sequencing data, faciliating cancer research and potentially informing precision medicine approaches in which treatments are tailored to an individual’s disease. The study appears today in Nature Medicine.