London, Dec.22, (PRINTWORDS NEWS) In a significant development that is expected to revolutionize cancer treatment in the near future, British scientist have comprehended the genetic codes of two of the most deadly form of cancer. This marks a major breakthrough in cancer research as the entire genome of lung cancer and skin cancer has been deciphered by Britain based researchers. The latest findings which are said to be groundbreaking, are expected to go a long way in elucidating treatments for preventing the disease by developing effective anticancer therapies.
With the aim of giving an impetus to cancer treatment, the scientist took cells from a lung cancer victim as well as a patient suffering from malignant melanoma, which is one of the most terminal forms of skin cancer. The next step was to decipher the genetic codes from both the cancerous cells as well as healthy cells taken from the same patients, which was achieved by advanced DNA sequencing technologies. This was followed by comparison of the genetic make up of both the cancerous cells and the healthy cells which enabled the scientists to understand the genetic mistakes or mutations that were present in the cancerous tissues. Usually most of the genetic defects or mutations turn out to be ‘passengers’, which do not cause any significant damage to the cells but at times there are certain mutations known as ‘drivers’, which propel healthy cells to become cancerous.
The research revealed that lung cancer consists of around 23,000 mutations whereas the number of mutations in malignant melanoma turned out to be 33,000. The researchers mainly based their study on lung cancer and skin cancer as the environmental agents which stimulate the deadly diseases is well known. In case of skin cancer, the main causative agent turns out to be the harmful exposure to the ultra violet rays of the sunlight. However, lung cancer is the direct consequence of excessive smoking. One of the alarming revelations of the study is that smokers undergo one genetic faults or mutation for every 15 cigarettes that is smoked. However, smokers who have kicked the habit for more than 10 years, are at a much lesser risk of developing the terminal disease.
Professor Mike Stratton, of the Cambridge based Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, which undertook the study said,”What you are seeing today is going to transform the way that we see cancer. This is a really fundamental moment in the history of cancer research.” It has also been emphasized that understanding the genetic faults in both the terminally fatal forms of cancer, is expected to go a long way in paving the path of effective treatment of the disease that has for long been considered incurable.
Dr Peter Campbell, who headed the lung cancer research team adds,”The knowledge we extract over the next few years will have major implications for treatment. 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.”
Meanwhile, lung cancer which claims about 34,500 lives every year, is also known to be responsible for one in seven deaths in Britain. Moreover, since the disease can be termed as almost incurable, following the diagnosis, less than 10 percent of the patients can survive beyond 5 years.
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