Scientist discover the family of genes responsible for the growth of Brain tumor

A group of scientists have been able to identify a family of genes that are responsible for tumor growth. This new study is being viewed as a new ray of hope for the patients suffering from this deadly disease.  Brain tumor or intracranial neoplasm occurs when abnormal cells are formed within the brain. These abnormal cells include two types of cells which are the cancerous and the benign tumors. The Cancerous tumors can be further divided into two parts; the primary tumors that start within the brain and the secondary tumors that have spread from somewhere else.

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Researchers identified the family of genes that causes the growth of the tumor in a wide spectrum of high-grade brain cancers. The lead author of the study, Joshua Breunig, who is a research scientist at the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute in the U.S., said,” ‘With these new genetic findings, our researchers plan to develop targeted therapeutics that we hope will one day be used to treat patients with high-grade brain tumors and increase their survival.”

Clearly the research is meant to help the therapists and the drug makers develop medication so that more time can be given to the patients and efforts canbe made to save them. The co-author of the study, Moise Danielpour from the Maxine Dunitz Children’s Health Centre indicated that the high – grade brain tumors that are known as gliomas are difficult to treat and most patients treated for primary gliomas develop into secondary gliomas which are fatal most of the times.  He further revealed that any given tumor can harbor a variety of different combinations of mutations.

At the moment there is no definitive cure for these diverse tumors. There are treatments like the Radiation therapy in which the doctors aim to kill the tumor cells while leaving the normal cells intact. This process is repeated for about 10-30 treatments which usually depend on the type of the tumor involved. The other type of treatment for this is the Chemotherapy in which the approach towards killing the tumor is different. The patient is given specific drugs that are used to kill off the tumor cells.

The Ets or the E 26 transformation-specific is the family of genes that the researchers have found responsible for the increase of tumor. After finding the family, the next step in the study would be to identify the role of each individual Ets factor in the progression of the brain tumor and create an effective treatment for it.