Discovery could lead to earlier detection and new treatments.

We all know that cancer cells are bad. But what makes them bad? After all, they are all descended from perfectly healthy human cells.

To understand, we need to look at how cells work. All of our cells, healthy or otherwise, contain the genetic code (also known as DNA).

This code tells the cell how to behave, and gives the instructions for all of the proteins needed to help the cell survive and replicate.

In cancer cells, there are errors in the code that can vary between different types of cancer or even down to specific patients.

Most cells need multiple errors to become cancerous and, since these errors affect how the cancer behaves, it is really important for doctors to know which errors a patient’s cancer has.

Wilms tumour, a type of kidney cancer, can involve a number of different genetic mutations. In 2017, we funded Dr Sam Behjati’s project into the development of Wilms tumour.

Based at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Sam wanted to find out which genetic mutation happens first. He hoped that understanding the order of genetic errors could identify the “Achilles’ heel of Wilms tumour”.

If we could find medicines that fight the results of these mutations, it could lead to effective new targeted treatments.

For children with Wilms tumour in both kidneys, Sam found that the cells with the first genetic mutations could be found in normal kidney tissue.

These precursor cells were made in the womb before separate kidneys were formed. This means that these children were susceptible to Wilms tumour before they were even born.

For children with cancer in just one kidney, the same precursors were present around half of the time.

This finding is really important because it shows that cancer development begins much earlier than previously thought, hidden in normal-looking tissue.

This could lead to earlier detection, better monitoring, and new strategies to treat Wilms tumour.

Read more about this project here!