Researchers identified new mutations that drive cancer – a short review of the latest study results by BIOMEDICA CRO
Currently, at least 30 percent of cancer patients have no detectable driver mutation that can be used to guide treatment.
Using a new model the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) team added to the known landscape of mutations that can drive oncological conditions.
“We created a probabilistic, deep-learning method that allowed us to get a really accurate model of the number of passenger mutations that should exist anywhere in the genome,” says Maxwell Sherman, a MIT graduate student. “Then we can look all across the genome for regions where you have an unexpected accumulation of mutations, which suggests that those are driver mutations.”
In their new study, the researchers found additional mutations across the genome that appear to contribute to tumor growth in 5 to 10 percent of patients with oncological diseases. The findings could help doctors to identify drugs that would have greater chance of successfully treating those patients, the researchers say.
The scientific group also used their model to investigate whether common mutations that were already known might also be driving different types of cancers.
As one example, they found that BRAF, previously linked to Melanoma, also contributes to cancer progression in smaller percentages of other types of cancers, including Pancreatic, Liver, and Gastroesophageal.
Please find more information in the “Nature Biotechnology” journal, articles, “Genome-wide mapping of somatic mutation rates uncovers drivers of cancer”.
Human biospecimens for cancer research by BIOMEDICA CRO
BIOMEDICA CRO team is ready to provide human biospecimens and associated clinical data from patients with various diseases.
We have very good access to donors with oncological conditions, such as:
- Breast cancer;
- Prostate Cancer;
- Ovarian Cancer;
- Colorectal Cancer;
- Cervical cancer, etc.
It is feasible to collect tissue samples (tumor/NAT FFPE blocks, fresh frozen tissue samples, histological slides, and lymph nodes), blood samples (plasma, serum, buffy coat, PBMC) and other biofluids from this cohort.
Today we have already provided more than 84000+ biospecimens for investigators from Europe, Canada, USA and Japan since 2017.
Our team is ready to join new projects and contribute to the scientific cooperation!
Please email us to start our collaboration: office@biomedica-cro.com / LinkedIn.
