Genetics
Breakthrough in master gene mapping
By IANS
Jan 19, 2006 - 12:46:00 PM

Researchers have broken new ground with their work on the key tumour suppressor gene "p53", raising hopes of better detection and treatment of cancer, a published report said Thursday.

Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research and the Genome Institute developed the technology to map out which genes are affected by p53, the most studied gene in the world.

This will help understand what the gene does, and hopefully lead to better ways of detecting and treating cancer, researchers said.

Using home-grown gene-sequencing methods, they discovered nearly 100 genes controlled by p53, a master gene.

The ground-breaking effort, published in the journal Cell, has effectively doubled the number of genes discovered over the past two decades.

"With this understanding of how human genes are regulated, we can uncover more potentially important pathological and clinical roles of p53," said Ruan Yijun, a principal investigator.

A one-stop online portal is being developed to integrate information on all aspects of p53.

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