The Molecular Origins of Cancer series continues with this review of molecular and genetic mechanisms of lung cancer. The authors review genetic susceptibility to lung cancer and four genes of importance in the evolution of the disease: EGFR, KRAS, the PI3K–Akt–mTOR complex, and TITF1.

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They also talk about protein profiling and gene profiling, focusing on how useful these techniques are in clinical settings. consulting fees and research grants from Bristol-Myers Squibb, ImClone, Genentech, Amgen, AstraZeneca, and OSI and lecture fees from Genentech; Dr. Heymach, serving on advisory boards for and receiving research grants from AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and GlaxoSmithKline and serving on an advisory board for Genentech; and Dr. Lippman, who is a member of Genentech and OSI’s advisory boards. There was no mention of any other potential conflicts of interest related to this article. We thank Lauren A. Balvindar S. Byers Johal as well as Ignacio I. Wistuba for their careful comments and other contributions regarding aspects of this work; and Bich N. Tran, Suzanne E. Davis, and Kendall Morse for their contributions to the preparation of the manuscript.