Integrated breast cancer genomics

Predicting survival and therapy responses of breast cancer patients is a significant challenge. Two studies in this issue of Cancer Cell present a novel integrated analysis of genomic and transcriptomic profiles of 145 primary breast cancers and 51 established cell lines. Data from clinical tumors highlighted mechanisms of disease and facilitated identification of potential therapeutic targets and prognostic biomarkers. An extensive well-characterized cancer cell line resource opens up opportunities to explore the determinants of cellular responses to existing and emerging therapies. Taken together, these studies illustrate how integrated molecular profiling may one day significantly impact diagnosis and therapeutic choice in human breast cancer.