cancer genome

Advances in diagnosis and treatment mean more children are living longer with cancer than ever before, with about 270,000 childhood cancer survivors alive today nationwide. Despite these advances, cancer remains the leading cause of death due to disease among U.S. children over one year of age.

September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, but for researchers at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, it is a year round mission to research new ways to help more children live long, active lives while also working to better understand the challenges childhood cancer survivors face.

“Our goal is to push the cure rate for all childhood cancers to 90 percent in the next decade. Rapid advances in science and technology, especially at the genetic level, are going to make that possible,” said Dr. William E. Evans, St. Jude director and chief executive officer. St. Jude is the nation’s only federally funded cancer center focused solely on childhood cancer.

This year cancer will be diagnosed in more than 10,000 children and adolescents age 14 and younger. For some, including those with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the fear of diagnosis will be tempered by the optimism of cure rates near 90 percent thanks to researchers at St. Jude and other institutions around the world. For other children diagnosed with cancer, optimism is in shorter supply. Despite decades of research, cure rates for some childhood cancers remain below 50 percent.

Researchers believe the next generation of understanding and combating cancer will come from the study of cancer cells and mapping the human cancer genome or blueprint. “Cancer in children as well as adults is a disease of DNA,” Evans explained.

St. Jude is at the forefront of pediatric cancer genome research, with a goal to catalogue the genetic changes that give rise to the uncontrolled cell division that is a hallmark of all cancers.

“We think technology and science are at a point where we can markedly expand our interrogation of the DNA of childhood cancers to start to fully understand all the mutations that are causing a white blood cell to become a leukemia cell or a brain cell to become a brain tumor,” Evans said.

Recent research from St. Jude investigators highlights how patients might benefit from improved understanding of the genetic roots of their disease. In January a team led by St. Jude investigators linked changes in a gene known as IKAROS with a high risk of relapse in patients with ALL. In August, a St. Jude team identified inherited variations in two genes that account for 37 percent of childhood ALL.

In order to better understand cancer cells, researchers need access to tissue samples. The researchers at St. Jude are uniquely positioned to conduct this type of research because the hospital is home to one of the world’s largest and most complete repositories of biological information about childhood cancer. Collected since the 1970’s, St. Jude has more than 50,000 biological samples from patients who agreed to participate. The bank’s contents include tumor, bone marrow, plasma, serum and blood samples.

To find out how you can help support St. Jude, click here.

September 2009

To comment on this article, click here.


Email This Article Email This Article   |   Print Print