A Milestone in Cancer Genetics: deCODE Discovers First Common Genetic Variants Affecting the Risk of Many Types of Cancer

Findings point to common mechanisms of susceptibility to cancers of the lung, bladder, prostate, cervix and skin; findings to be integrated into deCODEme(TM), the new deCODEme Cancer Scan(TM), and deCODE's DNA-based risk diagnostic tests

REYKJAVIK, Iceland, Jan. 18 (HSMN NewsFeed) -- Scientists at deCODE genetics (Nasdaq: DCGN ) and colleagues from the US and ten European countries today announced a long-awaited first in cancer research: the discovery of common single-letter variations in the human genome (SNPs) linked to susceptibility not of one, but several different types of cancer, including those of lung, bladder, prostate, skin and cervix.

Over the past two years, deCODE has led a wave of discoveries by scientists around the world of common SNPs conferring risk of many major types of cancer. Yet without exception, these SNPs have been linked to cancer of only one or at most two tissue types or organs. The SNPs published today, located near each other on chromosome 5p15, may therefore help to tag major biological mechanisms underlying cancer susceptibility more generally. The paper, entitled "Sequence variants at the TERT-CLPTM1L locus associate with many cancer types," is published today in the online edition of Nature Genetics at www.nature.com/ng, and will appear in an upcoming print edition of the journal.

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