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scientists have decoded the complete genes in a single person’s cancer, allowing them to uncover eight new genes that could lead to better ways to treat the disease.

The Washington University professors ascertained ten gene mutations which appeared key to the development of the women’s acute myeloid leukaemia.

The researchers used malignant blood cells from a woman who later died from the disease, a cancer of blood-forming cells in the bone marrow, according to a paper in today’s Nature. Doctors mapped all the genes in her tumor cells, the compared them — side by side — with the genes in a normal cell from her skin.

That allowed them to see exactly how the DNA of cancer differs from healthy DNA, says author Timothy Ley, a professor of medicine and genetics at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. (continue reading…)