Published studies on Serial Analysis of Gene Expression (SAGE) have identified ~56,000 unique genes from 22 libraries constructed from colorectal cancer tissues and cell lines, and 40 genes that are expressed in all cancer tissues, irrespective of origin (Velculescu et al., Nature Genetics 1999). This platform has the unique ability to identify novel transcripts that have not been represented in any EST data set. The Tai lab has employed this SAGE-platform to identify unknown transcripts representing novel genes involved in the multi-step progression of colorectal cancer development. Novel genes identified in this manner will be studied systematically for their role in colorectal cancer progression and tumourigenesis.