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| Discoveries |
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In 2005, our research team at MCTP, under the leadership of Dr. Arul Chinnaiyan, discovered a specific type of genetic change found in prostate cancer; a “gene fusion”. This occurs when parts of two separate chromosomes, lying side-by-side,become fused together. With this new combination, the genes function improperly, and they begin to carry out abnormal activities that can lead to the development of prostate cancer. This “gene fusion” (TMPRSS2-ETS) occurred in approximately 60-70% of the prostate cancer cases we tested. Previously, this had been observed in cancers of the blood, such as leukemia and lymphoma, but it had not been detected in cancers that produce solid tumors, such as those of the prostate and breast. A critical part of this was accomplished using a novel bioinformatics research analysis method, Cancer Outlier Profile Analysis (COPA), developed by two graduate students working in the laboratory at that time, Scott Tomlins and Daniel Rhodes. Our ground-breaking discovery dramatically shifted the scientific understanding of the events that lead to cancer development in solid tumors.
If you are a member of the general public or news media, and would like to view a more in-depth description of our current studies, please visit our Latest from the Bench, News , and For Patients sections. The sections are regularly updated with new develops as they occur to provide the most current information. Click on the links below to view more information on some of these topics.
If you are a scientist, then please visit the About MCTP page in our section For Scientists where you can find more detailed scientific descriptions of our work. We also provide pdf links to our publications in our News section, and links to our PubMed abstracts in our Featured Publications and Full Publications sections.
In 2005, our research team at MCTP, under the leadership of Dr. Arul Chinnaiyan, discovered a specific type of genetic change found in prostate cancer; a “gene fusion”. This occurs when parts of two separate chromosomes, lying side-by-side, become fused together. With this new combination, the genes function improperly, and they begin to carry out abnormal activities that can lead to the development of prostate cancer. This “gene fusion” (TMPRSS2-ETS) occurred in approximately 60-70% of the prostate cancer cases we tested. Previously, this had been observed in cancers of the blood, such as leukemia and lymphoma, but it had not been detected in cancers that produce solid tumors, such as those of the prostate and breast. A critical part of this was accomplished using a novel bioinformatics research analysis method, Cancer Outlier Profile Analysis (COPA), developed by two graduate students working in the laboratory at that time, Scott Tomlins and Daniel Rhodes. Our ground-breaking discovery dramatically shifted the scientific understanding of the events that lead to cancer development in solid tumors.
If you are a patient or member of the general public, and would like to view a more in-depth, description of our current studies, please visit our Latest from the Bench, News , and For Patients sections. We update these sections regularly with new develops as they occur to give you the most current information availabe. If you are a scientist, then please visit the About MCTP page in the For Scientists section, where you can find more detailed scientific descriptions of our work. We also provide pdf links to our publications in our News section, and links to our PubMed abstracts in our Featured Publications and Full Publications sections. |
