Investigators at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine and at Xijing Hospital and Sun Yat-sen Cancer Center in China say that DNA methylation can provide effective markers for at least four major cancers.
The biomarkers are able to differentiate malignant tissues from normal tissues and also provide information on prognosis and survival, according to the researchers.
“This new simple method will be of great value to pinpoint the primary source of the tumor.”
–Michael Karin, Ph.D., Professor of Pharmacology, UC San Diego School of Medicine.
“Choosing the proper cancer treatment with the best chance of recovery and survival depends greatly upon accurately diagnosing the specific type or subtype of cancer,” said Kang Zhang, M.D., Ph.D., founding director of the Institute for Genomic Medicine and co-director of biomaterials and tissue engineering at the Institute of Engineering in Medicine, both at UC San Diego School of Medicine.
Read the entire article at Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News here.