human cancers

(The Wistar Institute) Researchers at the Wistar Institute have deciphered the structure of the active region of telomerase, an enzyme that plays a major role in the development of nearly all human cancers.

The landmark achievement opens the door to the creation of new, broadly effective cancer drugs, as well as anti-aging therapies.

The study will be published online in Nature on Aug. 31.

A large genetic study in mice has identified hundreds of genes involved in the development of cancer by examining the DNA of more than 500 lymphomas to find the cancer causing mutations.

The study found just over 10,000 mutations in total, which together implicate almost 350 regions in the mouse genome in cancer formation.

Fifty of these regions correspond to genes known to be involved in human cancers.

Hormones produced by the heart eliminated human pancreatic cancer in more than three-quarters of the mice treated with the hormones and eliminated human breast cancer in two-thirds of the mice.

The treatment has not yet been tried in humans, but clinical trials are in the planning stages.