The Evolution of Cancer

At its heart, cancer is a disease of DNA. If you can detect the DNA mutations that have led to the development of a person's cancer and work out what caused them, then you should have the solution to their biological who done it. Research has started by focusing on just one gene, TP53, which is faulty in the majority of human cancers. Next-generation sequencing machines enabling scientists to move from reading hundreds of bases at a time to thousands or even millions will revolutionise our understanding of genetic changes inside individual tumors.