While great progress has been made in recent years toward a better understanding of the molecular basis and in the development of more effective preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic tools, prognosis for many different forms of cancers remains dismal. High-throughput genomic technologies have shed light on the multifaceted lesions, both genetic and epigenetic, that characterize tumor cells and reinforced the notion that only a comprehensive understanding of these lesions would allow a more incisive and ultimately effective cancer treatment. The goal of the laboratory of Functional Genomics of Cancer is to contribute to unravel the genes and mechanisms causative of a selected group of epithelial and hematological cancers, using the most recent genomic and epigenomic technologies, and to rigorously validate the results emerging from these analysis. Cancer is a devastating burden for patients and their families. Our ambition is to provide the scientific community with a fully validated set of genes and pathways that could become targets for focused therapeutic strategies.