mutations

New research by Daniel Link, MD, and colleagues at The Genome Institute at Washington University has revealed that mutations that accumulate randomly as a person ages can play a role in a fatal form of leukemia that develops after treatment for another cancer.

By analyzing the DNA in more than 3,000 tumors, scientists led by Li Ding, PhD, at The Genome Institute have identified 127 repeatedly mutated genes that likely drive the growth of a range of cancers in the body. The discovery sets the stage for devising new diagnostic tools and more personalized cancer treatments.

Hundreds of mutations exist in leukemia cells at the time of diagnosis but nearly all occur randomly as a part of normal aging and are not related to cancer, new research at Washington University School of Medicine shows.

The chemotherapy drugs required to push a common form of adult leukemia into remission may contribute to DNA damage that can lead to a relapse of the disease in some patients, findings of a new study suggest.

In the single largest cancer genomics investigation reported to date, scientists have sequenced the whole genomes of tumors from 50 breast cancer patients and compared them to the matched DNA of the same patients’ healthy cells. They uncovered incredible complexity in the cancer genomes, but also got a glimpse of new routes toward personalized medicine.