Where is details on Smoking just 15 cigarettes harms your DNA, finds cancer study on gene mutation?
Smokers experience one mutation to their DNA for every 15 cigarettes they smoker, according to a study that mapped out the genetic blueprint of a lung cancer patient. British researchers led the massive international project, which identified 23,000 mutations that bore the expected signs of damage caused by chemicals in tobacco smoke. All cancers are caused by mistakes in the genetic code – mutations in DNA that can be triggered by environmental agents. The scientists hope the results will help them understand the causes of cancer and to develop new treatments. They found the genetic defects ranged from single-letter changes in the person’s code to deletions or re-arrangements of hundreds of thousands of letters. No single mutation stood out as being the primary cause of the disease. Instead most were ‘passenger’ mutations that appeared to influence the development of cancer only in combination. Study leader Dr Peter Campbell, from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridgeshire
Smokers experience one mutation to their DNA for every 15 cigarettes they smoker, according to a study that mapped out the genetic blueprint of a lung cancer patient. British researchers led the massive international project, which identified 23,000 mutations that bore the expected signs of damage caused by chemicals in tobacco smoke. All cancers are caused by mistakes in the genetic code – mutations in DNA that can be triggered by environmental agents. The scientists hope the results will help them understand the causes of cancer and to develop new treatments. They found the genetic defects ranged from single-letter changes in the person’s code to deletions or re-arrangements of hundreds of thousands of letters. No single mutation stood out as being the primary cause of the disease. Instead most were ‘passenger’ mutations that appeared to influence the development of cancer only in combination. Study leader Dr Peter Campbell, from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridgeshire
