A landmark study across many cancer types has revealed that the universe of cancer mutations is much bigger than previously thought. By analyzing the genomes of thousands of patients’ tumors, a research team lead by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard has discovered many new cancer genes, expanding the list of known genes tied to these cancers by 25%. Moreover, the study shows that many key cancer genes remain to be discovered. The team’s work lays a critical foundation for future cancer drug development and shows that creating a comprehensive catalog of cancer genes for scores of cancer types is feasible with as few as 100,000 patient samples. The study was published recently in the journal Nature.
“For the first time, we know what it will take to draw the complete genomic picture of human cancer,” says senior co-author Eric Lander, PhD. “That’s tremendously exciting, because the knowledge of genes and their pathways will highlight new, potential drug targets and help lead the way to effective combination therapy.”
Over the past 30 years, scientists have found evidence for about 135 genes that play causal roles in one or more of the 21 tumor types analyzed in the study. The new report uncovers 33 more genes with biological roles in cell death, cell growth, genome stability, immune evasion, and other processes.
The researchers estimate that they will need to analyze, on average, about 2,000 samples of each cancer type in order to catalog the vast majority of these mutations—about 100,000 samples across roughly 50 tumor types. “Given that there are around 32 million people living with cancer worldwide, this is a very reasonable number to study,” says co-author Gad Getz, PhD. Read the article preview.
