Cancer biomarkers

1 . A method of analyzing a tumor sample, consisting essentially of:

extracting RNA from a tumor sample from a patient with prostate cancer and reverse transcribing the RNA to cDNA;

amplifying the cDNA of (i) a set of marker genes consisting of 10-30 marker genes comprising at least NUSAP1 and UBE2C and (ii) one or more housekeeping genes; and

determining an expression level for each gene in the set of marker genes.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the set of marker genes additionally comprises ZWILCH.

3 . A method of analyzing a tumor sample, comprising:

(a) obtaining a sample comprising prostate cancer tumor tissue from a patient; and

(b) determining the expression of a panel of genes comprising NUSAP1 and UBE2C and no more than 30 total marker genes in the sample comprising prostate cancer tumor tissue;

wherein the patient is a candidate for active surveillance or actively surveilled when the expression of the genes NUSAP1 and UBE2C in the sample is not higher than the expected expression of the genes NUSAP1 and UBE2C in prostate cancer tumor tissue from a reference population, or

wherein the patient is a candidate for an active treatment selected from one or more of hormonal therapy, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgery when the expression of the genes NUSAP1 and UBE2C in the sample is higher than the expected expression of the genes NUSAP1 and UBE2C in prostate cancer tumor tissue from a reference population.

4 . The method of claim 3 , wherein the panel of genes further comprises ZWILCH.