CANCER CURED: [cancercured] Cancer Caused by New Kind of Gene

Personally, I doubt they'll find a CURE for cancer this way, but
interesting . . .

Cancer Caused by New Kind of Gene

It was a few years ago that Croce began to sniff out one of the most
surprising and most promising discoveries in cancer research. The
discovery placed him and his collaborators at the leading edge of a
now-booming field that promises improved techniques for diagnosing
cancer diseases and, they hope, more effective new treatments.

Ambros' new gene was truly tiny, only 70 bases long, not 10,000 bases
like
other genes. Stranger still, the gene didn't make a protein, as other
genes
do. Instead, it made another kind of genetic material, which is now
called
microRNA. Traditional genes make RNA also, but that RNA is short-lived,
serving as a mere intermediary in the construction of proteins. But this
microRNA was the gene's end product, and it was no mere messenger.

"Every cancer we look at, we find an alteration in microRNA," says
Croce.
"In probably every human tumor there are alterations in microRNA." Calin
and Croce were convinced: these two tiny genes made microRNAs that
suppressed
cancer.

MicroRNA, Ambros and Ruvkun realized, worked by an intriguing mechanism:
it
acted like a miniature strip of Velcro. Because the microRNA gene
matched
part of a traditional gene, the microRNA stuck to RNA produced by the
traditional gene. In doing so, it blocked the other gene from producing
protein.

Read more:
http://snipr.com/n9xqu

Of course, the cures for cancer are already largely known, if only the
world were open to them.