Again, I won’t be linking to the NY Times because of the barriers they put up to keep people from reading their content. But I will link to the Boing Boing article that talked about how scientists are using the latest in genome sequencing and supercomputer technology to learn more about cancers and target treatment that could prove more effective than what patients go through/suffer from today.

From the source article:

The researchers on the project put other work aside for weeks, running one of the university’s 26 sequencing machines and supercomputer around the clock. And they found a culprit — a normal gene that was in overdrive, churning out huge amounts of a protein that appeared to be spurring the cancer’s growth.

Personal treatments are just a small breakthrough in the batter for patients’ lives. It could lead to a new understanding of how normal and cancerous cells and cancels impact one another in our complex cellular ecosystem. It could lead to a complete rewrite of how we view molecular and cellular biology.

Exciting and hopeful stuff for people at risk of getting cancer. New treatments might not be available to current patients just yet but it still gives me hope that more information and understanding will lead to better targeted treatments.