Research shows the cause of cancer

The journal Nature, published yesterday the first global map of mutational processes, conducted by researchers from the United Kingdom, which can trace the mutational processes behind the development of tumors. These results are expected to serve in the future to create treatments that avoid the spread of cancer.

From 7000 genomes, or genetic codes of the common forms of cancer, it was discovered 21 of the so-called “fingerprints” of the processes that mutate the DNA.

“This is an important step to discover the processes that leads to cancer formation. (…) Through detailed analysis, we can begin to use the overwhelming amount of information buried in the DNA of cancers to take advantage of it in terms of understanding how and why there a cancer is developed,” said Serena Nik-Zainal, of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.

Scientists have confirmed many of the reasons why these mutations occur (smoking, ultraviolet light, etc.), but they haven’t  figure out the biological processes that cause the mutations of most cancers.