[Molecular biological approaches to lung cancer]

Advances in lung cancer research have come from modern technology, allowing the establishment of lung cancer cell lines and experimental model systems, recombinant DNA technology, robust biological and biochemical functional assays in addition to classical methods such as immunohistochemistry. Such work indicates that the aberrant activation of protooncogenes and inactivation of tumor suppressor genes are fundamental processes for lung carcinogenesis. Further improvements such as DNA array technology will continue to unravel the genetic and epigenetic defects in a far more rapid and comprehensive way that was previously possible. This knowledge will lead to a genetic characterization of lung cancer cells and its specific subtypes, which will hopefully translate to new diagnostic and therapeutic gene based strategies. This review focuses on molecular biological techniques that have been used on lung cancer research and discusses future technological approaches.