From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Fri Jun 14 2002 - 10:12:07 MDT
This may not get most of you excited, but to me its hot news.
Scientists at the Dana Farber Institute has succeeded in linking
Fanconi's Anemia gene defects to the BRCA1/BRCA2 genes involved
in breast cancer.
Science Daily report:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/06/020614075100.htm
This is important because there have been multiple searches
for additional breast cancer susceptibility genes that have
come up empty handed. One recent study speculated that the
additional causes of breast cancer might be caused by a
large number of genes each making small contributions.
We now have 6 additional genes that may be players in the
development of cancer. Importantly, this raises the attention
that will be placed on defects in the DNA repair pathways
in contributions to cancer. We can expect a lot of activity
now to determine whether this provides a complete picture or
whether there are additional unknown genes.
In unrelated news, it looks like a urine or blood test for
isoprostanes, a product of free radical damage to liids,
may be a good biomarker for the development of Alzheimer's
disease.
See:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/06/020614075307.htm
Robert
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:14:47 MST