Well I can finally share our big news with you!
Dr. Sam Aparicio, head of the breast cancer research program at the BC Cancer Agency, along with a team that included Dr. Marco Marra, head of the Genome Sciences Centre, have successfully decoded a lobular breast cancer tumour – for the first time in the world anywhere.
Your DNA is like a book, with three billion different letters, and cancer develops because of a spelling mistake somewhere among all those letters. Ultimately, researchers want to be able to find those spelling mistakes so that they can correct them.
Well they found the 32 genomic mutations – or spelling mistakes – in this patient’s metasatatic tumour. But then the researchers were able to go back to the primary tumour from the same patient and see that there were only eleven spelling mistakes! And, of those 11, six mutations were present in only a fraction of the cells – which means that right from the outset, not all of the cells contained the same mutations.
Okay, what does all that mean?
Well, it’s really groundbreaking. It’s the first time scientists have been able to identify all the spelling mistakes in one breast tumour from one patient. It’s the first time they’ve been able to see the evolution of a tumour by DNA sequencing. And it’s the first time researchers have seen that the original tumour was heterogeneous (not all of the cells had the same mutations).
The most significant aspect of this discovery is around the heterogeneity of these tumours – and the research team thinks this will have a huge impact on the way new drugs are developed and the way cancers are targeted in the future – because the previous assumption was that tumours are uniform.
This is such a big deal that it’s being published as the cover story in the journal Nature. It’s very prestigious just to be published in Nature – but to be highlighted on the cover is amazing!
But most importantly to me, this discovery was made possible because of philanthropy. And undoubtedly the Weekend to End Breast Cancer (now the Weekend to End Women’s Cancers) had the biggest impact.
The BC Cancer Foundation has invested over $15 million into breast cancer and Dr. Aparicio’s program over the past six years. That would not have happened without you – the thousands of people who took millions of steps and raised those dollars. I simply cannot thank all of you enough.
I understand how important it is for people to see the impact of the dollars they raise and provide. I hope this helps to show that you are making a difference and we are getting closer to a world free from cancer. Please keep walking and keep donating – Dr. Aparicio and his team need you, as do the thousands of patients who will benefit from this discovery.
Best regards,
Nick