October 1, 2013.In a review article entitled, “Pan-Cancer study unearths tumors’ genetic trademarks, published in its  26th Sept. edition of Nature,  Heidi Ledford, a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley and a freelancer, reports of commonalities between different types of cancers such as lung-, breast-, pancreatic cancer. According to Ledford, different types of cancer can have much in common at the molecular level. Investigators made an analysis of more than 3,000 genomes across 12 different kinds of tumors that cross tissue boundaries. According to this investigation there are more than 100 regions of the genome containing previously undiscovered drug targets, Such results call for a new classification of tumors that may open up prospects for the cure of individual patients not responding  to the current treatment.

Piecing   together cancers of different organs may give a strong clue leading to the discovery of  common pathways that may result in the manifestation of different types of cancer. Following the availability of a greater number of cancer  samples it will be easier to carry out  statistical analysis to find genomic changes associated with different types of cancer.