SL2 ADVANCES IN MOLECULAR BIOLOGY AND GENETICS IN GLIOMA RESEARCH AND THERAPY

The most recent version of the WHO Classification of Tumours of the Central Nervous System includes, for the first time, the joint consideration of tumor pathology with tumor genetics as measured in various ways. This has come decades after the first recognition of genetic lesions in tumor genomes as discerned by cytogenetics and more than 30 years after the first reports of specific and recurrent genetic abnormalities in human tumors, particularly gliomas. This information is vitally important because it is now being used not just for tumor diagnosis but also to indicate specific therapies. In this lecture, I will review the increasingly precise methodologies being employed, the resultant genetic lesions being uncovered and the increasing import of such information for therapeutic selection.