A study led by Lecia Sequist, an instructor at Harvard Medical School and an oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, suggests that cancer treatment can be tailored to the genetic profile of a patient’s tumor, hitting precise molecular targets in tumors while being less toxic to normal cells.

Patients with lung tumors were genetically screened to identify those likely to respond to a targeted therapy. Those receiving a drug matched to their tumor fared better than is typically seen with standard chemotherapy.