Cool Gene Sequencing Story

The New York Times recently ran a series of three stories on gene sequencing, and how it may help to solve the cancer puzzle. The first in the series is called "In Treatment for Leukemia, Glimpses of the Future." The other two articles are linked at the top of the page for that article.

What I like most about the series is the personal stories -- including one about a leukemia researcher who is diagnosed with aggressive leukemia, and becomes a guinea pig of sorts for the kind of gene sequencing research that the articles highlight. Basically, what's involved is taking a sample of the tumor's DNA and a sample of non-cancerous DNA from the same patient, doing a full accounting of the genetic code for each, and then comparing them. To give you a sense of how big a task that is,  the second article says that the genetic code amounts to about three billion symbols, made up of four letters (A, T, G, and C). Put all 3 billion of those in book form, and "they would fill a medium-sized elementary school’s library." That's for the cancer cell. That's another 3 billion to be analyzed for the normal cell.

Obviously, there are some computers involved here.

Once abnormalities are identified (there's a difference in the patterns of the two cells), then a targeted treatment can be attempted. (This assumes that there are genetic differences between similar cancers; in other words, while two Follicular NHL cells might look alike, they were caused by two different genetic mutations).

Anyway, it's all fascinating, and pretty accessible. The NYT reporter was interviewed on the NPR radio show Here & Now. Also accessible, the interview provides a little more depth about the topic.

As good an introduction to the genome/cancer link as you're likely to find.