Personalised cancer treatment that will slash the mortality rate of the world’s second-biggest killer is within reach after scientists unveiled a comprehensive catalogue of the disease’s genetic make-up.
An international collaboration involving 1,300 scientists has completed a decade-long project to map the many mutations that drive cancer’s development. The results were published on Thursday in a series of papers in Nature and its sister journals.
“For more than 30 cancers we now know what specific genetic changes are likely to happen and when these are likely to take place,” said Peter Van Loo of the Francis Crick Institute in London, one of the project leaders. “Unlocking these patterns means it should now be possible to develop new diagnostic tests that pick up signs of cancer much earlier.”