Clinical uses of microarrays in cancer research.

Perturbations in genes play a key role in the pathogenesis of cancer. Microarray-based technology is an ideal way in which to study the effects and interactions of multiple genes in cancer. There are many technologic challenges in running a microarray study, including annotation of genes likely to be involved, designing the appropriate experiment, and ensuring adequate quality assurance steps are implemented. Once data are normalized, they need to be analyzed; and for this, there are numerous software packages and approaches.