Eventually a simple blood test will lead to accurate “made to measure” treatments that can identify, attack and kill the causes of each patient’s own individual cancer, they claim.
Professor Mike Stratton, of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, a world leading research centre in Cambridge who carried the studies, 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.”
All cancers are caused by damage or mutations to the DNA of formerly healthy cells acquired during a person’s lifetime.
This damage causes them to grow into abnormal lumps or tumours and spread around the body disrupting its normal processes and eventually – if unchecked – causing death.
In lung cancer the damage is almost entirely caused by smoking and in skin cancer or malignant melanoma by ultra violent sunlight.
The Sanger Institute studies used powerful new DNA sequencing technologies to decode completely the genome of both tumour tissue and normal tissue from a lung cancer and a malignant melanoma patient.
They then compared and contrasted the two to discover the differences and see what damage has occurred to cause the disease. The full Telegraph Uk article » By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent (Published 17 Dec 2009)
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Overview | Students learn about the latest research on cell and tissue renewal. They then explore the various internal body parts and systems examined in these studies. Go to this Health and Science Lesson. - The New York Times – Learning Network – Talking about Breast Cancer:
Overview | Students share words and associations related to cancer. They then investigate and participate in dialogues about the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. Go to this Health, Science and Life’s Lesson. - The New York Times – Learning Network – Evaluating the Changing Perceptions of Cigarette Smoking -
Overview | Students learn about the changing public perception of cigarettes over the century. They design a survey on people’s views on cigarette smoking for homework. Go to this Health and Science Lesson.
