A new U.S. cancer center says it is embarking on a 3-year, $35 million project to identify genetic changes involved in lung, brain and ovarian cancers. The Berkeley Cancer Genome Center, led by members of the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is a collaboration of Berkeley Lab, the University of California-Berkeley and the University of California-San Francisco. "The Berkeley Cancer Genome Center will be focused on identifying changes to the populations of messenger RNA that occur in cancer," said computational biologist Paul Spellman. "The center will ... measure exon-specific expression (the coding sequences in a gene) of at least 1,000 samples per year, and will use computational tools to identify those whose behavior suggests they might play a role in cancer." The center's director is Joe Gray, while Spellman is co-director. Investigators include John Conboy of Berkeley Lab's Life Sciences Division, Jane Fridyland of UC-San Francisco, and Terry Speed and John Ngai of UC-Berkeley's Department of Cell and Molecular Biology. Berkeley Lab conducts unclassified scientific research and is managed by the University of California.