Early, accurate and personalized diagnosis of cancer minimizes suffering and may be life-saving. Ideal tests are non-invasive, low cost and “all-in-one”. Tremendous progress has been made in diagnostic technologies over the last few decades in a wide range of areas, including bioimaging, biochips, genetic profiling, “omics” technologies and single-cell assays, to name just a few. Precise, early cancer diagnosis enables personalized and targeted therapies, thereby increasing the chances of cure while minimizing adverse side effects and the risk of relapse.

Precise diagnosis usually requires a combination of instrumentation (hardware) and computational data analysis (software). Imaging technologies or high-throughput “omics” assays produce large amounts of data, in which actionable pieces of information are hidden like needles in a haystack. Advanced machine learning algorithms are often needed to make sense out of “big data”. EPFL’s contributions to cancer diagnosis typically rely on interdisciplinary collaboration, leveraging excellence in cell biology, microtechnology and computational sciences.