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Cancer kills one third of the Canadian population and millions of people are living with cancer. The goal of this project was to detect cancers at an early stage to increase the chances of long term disease-free survival. This project developed techniques to track how cells transform into malignancies by identifying the altered patterns of genes and proteins in the early stages of cancer. The research focused on liver, lung, breast, gastric, oral, lymphoid, prostate and myeloid malignancies. The project created the first in vitro model of a mouse mammary gland from primitive cultured mouse epithelial cells. The project also found several new genes associated with lung cancer progression, 11 new genomic regions associated with prostate cancer, and 10 new E-cadherin mutations in gastric cancer. Gaining a better understanding of cancer progression will lead to the development of better preventative measures, screening protocols, and therapies.