The scientists at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill plot cancer genes like towns and roads on a map - coordinates that one day will result in a cancer atlas guiding doctors to smarter treatments.

In the next few weeks, Chuck Perou, a cell biologist and geneticist, will lead his research team in an analysis of hundreds of tissue samples taken from lung-, brain- and ovarian-cancer tumors. All three have limited treatment options and have never been thoroughly analyzed at the genetic level.