The Long Road to Personalized Medicine: How Mutations Activate a Telomerase Gene and Help Drive Cancer

The goal of personalized/precision medicine is to unleash the power of genomics, proteomics, and other omics to improve human health and combat disease. The road from scientific discovery to personalized medicine is exciting, but travel is slow. I will tell the story of my trip down one such road, which involves the molecular machine that builds out the DNA at chromosome ends and allows cells to divide continuously. This trip is still in progress, but the desired destination is clear: improved diagnostics and treatment for multiple cancers.