From computational genomics to systems metabolomics for precision cancer medicine and drug discovery

Notwithstanding decades of scientific and clinical investigation, cancer remains a disease that endangers many lives and brings deep sorrow to many families. So far, the war on cancer has been technology-driven. First, recombinant DNA technologies have led to the identification of oncogenes and tumour suppressor genes. Next, genomic sequencing and transcriptome analysis have allowed the characterization of both the set of mutated oncogenes and the very complex and variable transcriptome expression profiles, which appear to characterize each different cancer cell, both in human cell lines and in clinical samples. Enormous amounts of omics data of various kinds have been collected and analyzed using refined analytical technologies, and stored and made available for retrieval in specialized databases. By connecting such data with information on which drugs have been used for each patient, characterized by the specific signature of the driver mutation and the omics profile, and on the treatment outcome, the scientific community is now generating the so-called Cancer Big Data. On these bases, genomic Big Data and their analysis by computer sciences are predicted to be the field in which the war on cancer will finally be won