Cancer Genome Project

Throughout life, the genome within cells of the human body is exposed to DNA damage and suffers mistakes in replication. These corrosive influences result in progressive, subtle divergence of the DNA sequence in each cell from that originally constituted in the fertilised egg. The Cancer Genome Project used high-throughput genome sequencing to identify these somatically acquired mutations with the aim of characterising cancer genes, mutational processes and patterns of clonal evolution in human tumours.