New biomarkers unlock potential for more effective treatment of deadly cancers

The study investigated chromosomal instability – a distinctive feature of aggressive human cancers. Under normal conditions, a healthy cell will perfectly duplicate and divide, to form two identical daughter cells. Each daughter cell will contain the same number of chromosomes as their parent cell, with the exact same DNA sequence. In cancer cells, however, this duplication does not occur perfectly.

The team that carried out the study have also established a UK-based precision medicine start-up, Tailor Bio. The company has licensed a patent on the method described in the paper published in Nature, and obtained another patent based on previous work on the same subject. The team hope their findings will soon be translated to the clinic.

Reference article: A pan-cancer compendium of chromosomal instability. Ruben M. Drews et al. (Nature 2022) DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04789-9