Dr Luca Toschi speaks about molecular biomarkers and acquired resistance to new target agents. A number of speakers at ESMO 2010 have stressed the important of collecting tissue samples before treatment in order to identify any potential biomarkers and this is likely to become more important as the cost of cancer treatments increases. Dr Toschi discusses the steps that must be taken to improve the link between the laboratory and the clinic and outlines his work developing cost effective techniques for clinicians to identify which treatment is most likely to be effective for each individual patient.