The Stowers Institute's Conaway Lab has uncovered a previously unknown function of a gene product called Amplified in Liver Cancer 1 (Alc1), which may play a role in the onset of cancer. The work was published yesterday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science Early Edition.

In many types of cancer, parts of the genetic material of tumor cells are switched off by chemical labels called methyl groups. This kind of methyl labeling ranges among the epigenetic changes that do not change the sequence of DNA building blocks. Such labels are found particularly often in genes which act as important inhibitors of pathogenic cell growth.

Two University of Rhode Island scientists have revealed how a cancer causing protein is regulated by reactive oxygen species (ROS) -- a type of stress signal.

Gene p53 protects against cancer and is usually described as the most important gene in cancer research. However, scientists at Karolinska Institutet have now shown that a previously unknown gene, Wrap53, controls the activity of p53. As the regulation mechanism is relatively unexplored, the study opens up new routes to solving the mystery of cancer.

Scientists have discovered a novel way by which a much-studied cancer-promoting gene accelerates the disease. The finding suggests a new strategy to halt cancer’s progress.

A study seeking possible cancer genes elucidated the mutations and the genetic pathways activated in the most common form of lung cancer – lung adenocarcinoma – and could lead to improved diagnosis and treatment, said the director of the Baylor College of Medicine Human Genome Sequencing Center that played a major role in the project led by the National Human Genome Research Institute.

Dr. Tak Mak and scientists at The Campbell Family Institute for Breast Cancer Research at Princess Margaret Hospital have discovered the role of two "cousins" in the genetic family tree of cancer development.

Cells become cancerous mainly because they lose control of their growth. To better understand how this happens, a new study at Ohio State University's Comprehensive Cancer Center looks at four genes that help regulate cell growth in embryos and that contribute to cancer in adults.

A drug-like molecule called Wnt can be substituted for the cancer gene c-Myc, one of four genes added to adult cells to reprogram them to an embryonic-stem-cell-like state, according to Whitehead researchers.

Researchers at the OU Cancer Institute have identified a new gene that causes cancer. The ground-breaking research appears Monday in Nature’s cancer journal Oncogene.

Many women with a faulty breast cancer gene could be at greater risk of the disease due to extra ‘risk amplifying’ genes, according to research published in this week in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

Dartmouth Medical School geneticists have discovered a striking turnabout role for a gatekeeper known to put on the brakes for colon cancer. Flaws in a gene called adenomatous polyposis coli (APC), which normally prevents excessive cell growth, are thought to trigger development of most colorectal cancers.