CYCLOPS genes an Achilles’ heel in tumors? The genomic tumult
within tumor cells has provided scientists at the Harvard-
affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute
of Harvard and MIT with clues to an entirely new class of genes
that may serve as an Achilles’ heel for many forms of cancer.
Although most cancer therapy targets genes that cause normal
cells to turn cancerous, these new potential drug targets are
genes that are essential to all cells, but that have been
disrupted as cancer progresses. “One of the hallmarks of cancer
is genomic instability, in which entire sections of chromosomes
can be lost or duplicated many times over,” said study co-leader
Rameen Beroukhim, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard
Medical School (HMS) and researcher at Dana-Farber. “The result
is that genes residing in those areas are either deleted or
significantly over-copied.” This roiling of the chromosomes
often leads to partial loss of essential genes, leaving cancer
cells with barely enough of t