Mutation matters in precision medicine: A future to believe in

As a genetic disease [1] cancer dysregulates key oncogenic pathways that influence cell growth, proliferation, survival, angiogenesis, and metastasis. Among the major determinants that enable cancer cells to acquire malignant traits are genomic diversity and instability. In the post human genome project era, cancer-specific genomic maps are redesigning tumor taxonomy. The treatment modalities, as well as the overall management of cancer as a disease in today's clinic, have started depending heavily on the molecular pathology of the individual tumor(s) in addition to the fundamental classification of cancers by histopathology. The enrichment tumor taxonomy by genomic morphology has also opened up the possibilities for genomics-driven drug development. The success of a cancer drug today is fundamentally based on the success in identifying target genes that control tumorigenic pathways. One primary goal of precision cancer medicine is to make clinical decisions based on genomic/proteomic data, which can identify a target or targets for therapy, and subsequent inevitable development of therapeutic resistance to the drug. The ability to exploit tumor genetic information for its full clinical potential has only recently become evident. Over the last decade, the convergence of discovery, technology, and therapeutic development has created an unparalleled opportunity to test the hypothesis that systematic knowledge of genomic and proteomic information from individual tumor(s) may significantly improve clinical outcomes for many patients with unmanageable tumor burden. This review presents the signaling logic behind the ground rules for the rational approach to the genomics-driven precision medicine.