The Surgeon

Not a day goes by without a new story about the environment. Although we often consider the environment on a global scale, cells in our body also have to contend with environmental factors. New studies from a team of researchers from the Research Institute of the MUHC and McGill University show that the environment surrounding breast cancer cells plays a crucial role in determining whether tumor cells grow and migrate or whether they fade away. Their study is the first to identify the genes behind this environmental control and correlate them with patient outcome. Their findings are published in this week’s issue of Nature Medicine.
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Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine researchers published a study in The American Journal of Human Genetics identifying the hereditary components of colorectal cancer (CRC.) “Identification of Susceptibility Genes for Cancer in a Genome-wide Scan: Results from the Colon Neoplasia Sibling Study” is the first large linkage study of families with CRC and colon polyps in the country. Because only five percent of CRC cases are due to known gene defects, this NIH-funded study is designed to identify the remaining CRC-related susceptibility genes. The team built on a previous study which identified a specific region on chromosome 9q that harbors a CRC susceptibility gene. Upon review of a whole genome scan of all chromosome pairs in 194 families, the researchers were able to identify additional CRC gene regions on chromosomes 1p, 15q, and 17p.
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