Development of experimental techniques for the analysis of amplicomics

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Cancer is a disease caused by mutations in genes. We carry two individual genes transmitted from father and mother, but in cancer cells, number of some genes is aberrantly increased by so-called "gene amplification". Accumulating evidence indicates that those genes, "oncogenes" can be used as target genes for diagnosis and therapy. Our research group has been focusing on breast cancer in which gene amplification is frequently observed and we have succeeded in developing several experimental procedures to discover oncogenes. For example, we established a protocol which enable us to efficiently introduce genes into normal cells to test transforming activity, namley whether or not they generate cancer cells. Finally, we found some genes which may serve as molecular diagnosis and targeted therapy for cancer. Furthermore, we performed functional analysis to know "why they make cancer".