Researchers in the lab of Harvard Medical School Professor of Systems Biology Peter Sorger have discovered that the genetic identity of a tumor cell is an incomplete predictor for how it will respond to certain treatments. In the case of one particular new and highly touted cancer treatment, genetically identical cancer cells responded differently. These variations resulted from random cell-to-cell differences, such as how many protein copies each cell had at the time of treatment. What's more, these non-genetic characteristics were passed on to subsequent generations of cells, establishing a transient heritability. Learn more about these findings, which were reported in the journal Nature in 2009.
