Researchers sequence Genomes of 21 breast cancers

[Hopeful]

This article is in one of the news forums, but I thought it was worth exposing to a wider audience: http://www.news-medical.net/news/201...t-cancers.aspx

Here are the abstracts: http://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8...witch=standard

http://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8674(12)00528-4

The team found that some mutational processes act throughout the evolution of the cancer and some processes are present only quite late in the development of the cancer once divergence has occurred.

For example, four of the cancers had many extra copies of the gene that is the target of the Herceptin drug. The team found that the first few extra copies of the gene were gained very early in the development of the breast cancer, but it took the cancer a much longer period of time than expected to accumulate all of the extra 20-30 copies.

"Current cancer treatments do not take sub-clonal diversity into account and often target only the dominant sub-clone," explains Professor Mike Stratton. "This leaves the possibility that one of the minor sub-clones will then replicate and become dominant, leading to re-occurrence of the tumour."

Hopeful