CYCLOPS genes an Achilles’ heel in tumors?
The genomic tumult within tumor cells has provided scientists at the Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT with clues to an entirely new class of genes that may serve as an Achilles’ heel for many forms of cancer. Although most cancer therapy targets genes that cause normal cells to turn cancerous, these new potential drug targets are genes that are essential to all cells, but that have been disrupted as cancer progresses. “One of the hallmarks of cancer is genomic instability, in which entire sections of chromosomes can be lost or duplicated many times over,” said study co-leader Rameen Beroukhim, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and researcher at Dana-Farber. “The result is that genes residing in those areas are either deleted or significantly over-copied.” This roiling of the chromosomes often leads to partial loss of essential genes, leaving cancer cells with barely...