"Scientists have unlocked the entire genetic code of two of the most common cancers - skin and lung - a move they say could revolutionise cancer care. Not only will the cancer maps pave the way for blood tests to spot tumours far earlier, they will also yield new drug targets, says the Wellcome Trust team.
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The International Cancer Genome Consortium scientists from the 10 countries involved say it will take them at least five years and many hundreds of thousands of dollars to complete this mammoth task. But once they have done this, patients will reap the benefits.
Professor Michael Stratton, who is the UK lead, said: "These catalogues are going to change the way we think about individual cancers. By identifying all the cancer genes we will be able to develop new drugs that target the specific mutated genes and work out which patients will benefit from these novel treatments."
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The lung cancer DNA code had more than 23,000 errors largely triggered by cigarette smoke exposure. From this, the experts estimate a typical smoker acquires one new mutation for every 15 cigarettes they smoke. Although many of these mutations will be harmless, some will trigger cancer.
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By studying the cancer catalogues in detail, the scientists say it should be possible to find exactly which lifestyle and environmental factors trigger different tumours.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/8414124.stm
Although the announcement has been lauded by cancer researchers, will this technique improve the ability to prevent, treat and cure cancer?
The announcement is indeed significant and surely a beginning.
However, I would mention that mapping of the human genome was completed several years ago, and notwithstanding the early excitement and piles of data that were accumulated, insufficient resultant progress has been made in curing disease. The Human Genome Project was only a first step, and similarly, mapping of a "cancer gene code" is a remarkable feat, but "someone" still needs to collate and make sense of this overwhelming amount of new information.
By identifying all "cancer genes" will we be able to develop new drugs that target specific mutated genes? Let me begin by asking who is "we"? Over the past year, several Big Pharma companies have acknowledged that their R&D has failed and that they will be increasingly relying on universities and smaller biotechs to feed their dwindling pipelines.
Moreover, this study demonstrates how diseases are even more complex and multi-parametric than previously imagined, and although the resultant data is valuable, it shows the hurdles facing future drug development. How does one know which of 23,000 mutations are causing 90% of the damage? To answer that question, you need to understand the "how" and "why", and we are fast learning that there are no shortcuts in biology.
The information generated by this project will prove a windfall for those organizations able to synthesize it by way of advanced mathematics and computational skills, but they are few. As you well know by now, I believe that Compugen has the platforms to integrate this data after more than a decade of computerized modeling of important biological phenomena on the molecular level. This small company has demonstrated over recent months its ability to use such data to generate promising new therapeutic and diagnostic candidates, and I believe it is going to be a significant player in this field.
[As noted in prior blog entries, I am a Compugen shareholder, this blog entry is not a recommendation to buy or sell Compugen shares, and in mid-September 2009 I began work as a part-time external consultant to Compugen. The opinions expressed herein are mine and not necessarily those of Compugen.]
I agree: finding tens of thousands of mutations involved can not help much in drug development.
ReplyDeleteYesterday, I heard a very interesting lecture about cancer development by one prominent scientist. His idea is that cancer development is an evolutionary process, when some clones of cells have a survival advantage, and they expand and crowd-out other clones of cell. Some changes in cellular environment trigger this process. Most likely, epigenetics is heavily involved here.
He did not mention the discovery of these thousands of mutations involved as something important.