the National Cancer Institute. However, the same report indicated an increase from 2000 to 2009 in cancers of the liver, pancreas and uterus. Challenges A multitude of factors have been cited as impeding progress in finding a cure for cancer and key areas have been identified and suggested as important to accelerate progress in cancer research. Since there are many different forms of cancer with distinct causes, each form requires different treatment approaches. However, this research could still lead to therapies and cures for many forms of cancer. Some of the factors that have posed challenges for the development of preventive measures and anti-cancer drugs and therapies include the following: Inherent biological complexity of the disease: number of changes within a cell leading to the cancerous state disease heterogeneity due to different tissues of origin contribution of numerous genetic and environmental risk factors complexity of cellular interactions and cell signaling within the tumor microenvironment suitability of model organisms for understanding human disease. Roadblocks to translational medicine Challenges of early detection and diagnosis The drug approval process Availability of and access to patients with suitable tumor tissue for research Challenges in implementing preventive measures, such as the development and use of preventive drugs and therapies Choropleth mapping of the changes over time, of the national incidence rate, by cancer type, relative to the population at risk, is a technical challenge. Modern cancer research Genome-based cancer research projects The rise of a new class of molecular technologies developed during the Human Genome Project opens up new ways to study cancer and holds the promise for the discovery of new aspects of cancer biology that could eventually lead to novel, more effective diagnostics and therapies for cancer patients. These new technologies are capable of screening many biomolecules and genetic variations such as SNPs and copy number variations in a single experiment and are employed within functional genomics and personalized medicine studies. Speaking on the occasion of the announcement of $1 billion in new funding for genome-based cancer research, Dr. Francis Collins, director of the NIH claimed, "We are about to see a quantum leap in our understanding of cancer." Harold Varmus, after his appointment to be the director of the NCI, said we are in a "golden era for cancer research", poised to profit from advances in our understanding of the cancer genome. High-throughput DNA sequencing has been used to study the whole