Researchers Find Genetic Conspirators in Acute Myeloid Leukemia

[TECH NEWS]

Researchers have described how the most common gene mutation found in acute myeloid leukemia starts the process of cancer development and how it can cooperate with a well-defined group of other mutations to cause full-blown leukemia. The researchers suggest that three critical steps are required to transform normal blood cells into leukemic ones, each subverting a different cellular process. By charting the route towards cancer, the study identifies processes that might serve as targets for new treatments to halt the cancer’s development in its tracks and even reverse it. Acute myeloid leukemia is a rare but devastating disease, which can take hold in a matter of just days or weeks. “We have used targeted gene disruption to look at the way acute myeloid leukemia develops in mice,” says Dr George Vassiliou, Consultant Hematologist, cancer researcher and first author on the study from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, “and have found critical steps that take place when the cancer develops. Identifying the biological steps in turn means we can look for new drugs to reverse the process.”

3/27/11, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute