Genome mapping may help create tailored response to leukaemia

So one day last July,Dr. Timothy Ley,associate director of the universitys genome institute,summoned his team. Why not take a shot at seeing if we can find a rogue gene spurring Dr. Wartmans cancer,adult acute lymphoblastic leukaemia,he asked? Its now or never, he told them.

Dr. Leys team tried a type of analysis that they had never done before. They fully sequenced the genes of both his cancer cells and healthy cells,and at the same time analysed his RNA,a close chemical cousin to DNA,for clues to what his genes were doing.

The researchers on the project ran one of the universitys 26 sequencing machines and supercomputer around the clock. And they found a culprit a normal gene that was in overdrive,churning out huge amounts of a protein that appeared to be spurring the cancers growth.

The RNA sequencing showed that a normal gene,FLT3,was wildly active in the leukaemia cells. Its normal role is to make cells grow and proliferate.

Even better,there was a promising new drug,sunitinib or Sutent,that could shut down the malfunctioning gene a drug approved only for advanced kidney cancer. Dr. Wartman became the first person ever to take it for leukaemia. And now,against all odds,his cancer is in remission and has been since last fall.

While no one can say that Dr. Wartman is cured,after facing certain death last fall,he is alive and doing well. Dr. Wartman is a pioneer in a new approach to stopping cancer. What is important,medical researchers say,is the genes that drive a cancer,not the tissue or organ liver or brain,bone marrow,blood or colon where the cancer originates.

One womans breast cancer may have different genetic drivers from another womans and,in fact,may have more in common with prostate cancer in a man or another patients lung cancer. Under this new approach,researchers expect that treatment will be tailored to an individual tumours mutations,with drugs,that hit several key aberrant genes at once.