Thursday, September 19, 2013

Understanding Drivers Within Cancer Research

By Rob Sutter


According to a written piece on Futurity.org, drivers are essential when you're talking about cancer research. Basically, once you pinpoint the certain driver and it is struck, then the cancer associated with it collapses. However, glioblastoma is fascinating in that there are many different drivers to talk about, so it is clear that multiple targets are going to be had. First of all, it's worth making note of just why glioblastoma is seen as the most important tumor type as far as this form of research is concerned.

Glioblastoma is recognized in cancer research for a number of reasons but its prevalence is perhaps one of the most important aspects. It is not only the most common type of growth seen in the brain but it is also the most aggressive. Add in the fact that it is a complex growth and it is clear as to why organizations like Voices against Brain Cancer have placed so much focus on it. Where does the idea of "drivers" come into play, you may wonder?

The article went into detail about glioblastoma and how 15 percent of related cases can be assisted with different drugs, each of them approved by the FDA. As a result, there's a level of safety that is tied into them and the body can become helped by them. However, consider the fact that glioblastoma growths, or any related to the brain, have certain levels of complexity to speak of. This means that placing focus on all "drivers" is not the simplest task that can be gone about.

The Columbia University Medical Center performed a study and it was able to incorporate a few ideas, too. There was a tandem of high throughput DNA sequencing along with statistical analysis and it was able to bring the best kinds of results to the table. Driver candidates were put together in a list and it was able to help research immensely, as you can imagine. Seeing as how 140 tumor types were looked into, there was no limit as far as scope was concerned.

Cancer research is immensely important and I feel as though the idea of scope should be kept in mind. You never want to limit said scope because this is what is needed in order to bring the best results to the surface. The more that you're able to bring to the table, the greater that your findings are and the more you'll be able to learn about cancer in general. It is clear that the "drivers" are looked into with great focus and I think that it's easy to see why.




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