Cancer Genetics – Next Generation Sequencing
Cancer is a disease of the ‘genome’, which is the complete set of an individual’s DNA including all the genes. We all have two copies of each of our genes, one inherited from each of our parents.
In the majority of cases of cancer, faults in the DNA accumulate during a person’s lifetime but some people are born with a predisposition to cancer having inherited one faulty copy of a gene.
The ICR is working to identify the genetic factors that increase an individual’s risk of getting cancer.
This will allow us to give people personalised information about their risk of developing cancer and will help us to optimise patients’ diagnosis and treatment. It will also facilitate research into the causes of cancer which ultimately will help us learn how to prevent it.
The discovery of new cancer predisposition genes
Next generation sequencing methods have made large-scale, high-throughput sequencing a realistic proposition. These new sequencing technologies now allow experiments to be taken from candidate to whole genome level and will, almost certainly, result in the discovery of new cancer predisposition genes.
The results will provide fundamental insights into the genes that drive cancer, the inherited risk factor, their environmental causes and potential new treatment strategies.
There are many cancers to study in this way. Professor Nazneen Rahman, working with colleagues in the Division of Genetics and Epidemiology at the ICR, aims to perform next generation sequencing to support research programmes in prostate, breast, colorectal, testicular and childhood cancers.
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