Novel genetic and epigenetic alterations in ... - Ous-research.no

PREFACE“Is it just me? Or does everyonecome across genetics, genes, andDNA almost everywhere?”Madeleine AlbrightCancer as a disease has probably been around since the dawn of multicellular organisms. Theoldest written description of cancer is as early as the 17 th century BC in Egypt[1], but tracesof cancer has been detected as far back as in dinosaur fossils. According to the humoraltheory, it was believed that it was excess of black bile that was responsible for cancer as awhole. If this theory is correct the production of this body fluid must either have increasedrapidly over the last centuries, or increase with age, as one out of three people are diagnosedwith cancer today. Now we know that the black bile-theory did not stand the tooth of time,and that cancer is caused by both genes and environmental factors which via genetic andepigenetic abnormalities make normal regulation of e.g. cell cycle, apoptosis and signaling goawry.With improved life expectancy and a more sedentary lifestyle comes increased lifetime risk ofbeing diagnosed with cancer. Only in very rare occasions the primary tumor itself is fatal, butwhen the tumor metastasizes to distant and vital organs the mortality increases rapidly. As ittakes time from the first alterations via precursor lesions and the primary - to a fullymetastasized cancer, it leaves a window of opportunity in which the evolving cancer can bedetected and the person cured if the suitable tool or biomarkers is at hand.In September 2007, 4 years after the completion of the human genome project, the firstindividual genome was published[2]. Just a few moths later, the genome of James D. Watson,the co-discoverer of the double helix, was published using modern ultra high-throughput6