Cancer development is basically a failure in the regulation of cellular growth and proliferation. To transform a normal cell into a cancer cell, the genes that regulate cell growth and differentiation have to be altered. Two major gene types are involved in cancer develpment: oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. Oncogenes promote cell growth and reproduction, when these genes are mutated to form novel oncogenes or inappropriately over-expressed, malignant transformation may occur. While under-expression or inactivation of tumor suppressor genes may also promote cancer cell development. Though current researches have identified a bundle of oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes, it is still difficult to pinpoint the exact mutations responsible for particular cancers due to heterogeneous and complex genetic mutation makeup.

By using massive parallel sequencing and capturing technologies, it is now easy to review possible genetic alterations occurred in cancer gene candidates and evaluate the risk of cancer development. We are now providing a cancer candidate gene screening service with Roche Comprehensive Cancer Panel, focusing on 578 cancer genes based on the Cancer Gene Census by Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Genome Research Limited and the Genetic Testing Registry by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI).