Host Of New Discoveries Relating To Cancer And Genes

Cancer research is a priority for many health organisations around the world and there are a growing number of treatments available for all kinds of cancer.

There have recently been a number of new developments in relation to treating cancer using genetics.

Researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Jacobs School of Engineering have identified a new way of potentially targeting cancer cells with drugs, Medical Life Sciences News reported.

The findings, which were published earlier this month in Nature Methods, focus on a concept called synthetic lethality. This is the process by which drugs can selectively kill cancer cells while sparing normal ones.

According to the scientists, the genetic mutations that cause cancer also weaken the cancer cells, which is why this type of treatment could hold the key.

John Paul Shen, MD, clinical instructor and postdoctoral fellow at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center, told the publication that there is already a cancer drug available that works based on synthetic lethality.

This is olaparib, which is used to treat ovarian cancer, focusing on the BRCA gene. The challenge, says Shen, is finding the weakness.

“Many other cancers could likely be treated this way as well, but we don’t yet know which gene mutation combinations will be synthetic-lethal,” he told the news provider.

His team has therefore developed a new technique to test for synthetic-lethal interactions. Their system looks at both a tumour suppressor gene that is often mutated in cancer, as well as a gene that could be targeted by a cancer drug.

More work needs to be done to understand the implications and how this could translate into the development of cancer treatments going forward, so the team is working on refining the platform and scaling the cancer genetic network maps they produce.

There was also a breakthrough in relation to prostate, skin and breast cancer treatment this month. The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute has identified genes that help prevent these three types of cancer in mice.

A tumour suppressor gene – PTEN – has already been identified by the new research has found other genes that cooperate with PTEN.

These new genes have already been found to show relevance in human prostate tumours, with the researchers focusing on five of the most promising genes in prostate tumours.

Dr Juan Cadinanos, joint lead author from the Instituto de Medicina Oncologica y Molecular de Asturias in Spain, commented: “This is the first study to look specifically for tumour suppressor genes that cooperate with PTEN in a range of cancer types.”

The team now hopes that the genes they’ve identified in this study can be used as a basis for developing therapeutic strategies to treat prostate, as well as other kinds of cancer. Multiple approaches are necessary, because tumours develop resistance to treatments, they added.

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