| Summary: | <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>A central challenge in the molecular diagnosis and treatment of cancer is to define a set of molecular features that, taken together, distinguish a given cancer, or type of cancer, from all normal cells and tissues.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Discriminative margin clustering is a new technique for analyzing high dimensional quantitative datasets, specially applicable to gene expression data from microarray experiments related to cancer. The goal of the analysis is find highly specialized sub-types of a tumor type which are similar in having a small combination of genes which together provide a unique molecular portrait for distinguishing the sub-type from any normal cell or tissue. Detection of the products of these genes can then, in principle, provide a basis for detection and diagnosis of a cancer, and a therapy directed specifically at the distinguishing constellation of molecular features can, in principle, provide a way to eliminate the cancer cells, while minimizing toxicity to any normal cell.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The new methodology yields highly specialized tumor subtypes which are similar in terms of potential diagnostic markers.</p>
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