It’s a genetic disease, and as such, understanding DNA repair mechanisms is critical to figuring out how cancer develops and how to prevent and treat it. While “DNA repair” may sound like an exclusively good thing, it actually isn’t. This is because the leading anti-cancer therapies, ionizing radiation and chemotherapeutic agents, work by inflicting DNA damage to kill cancer cells. Therefore, an increased understanding of the DNA process can help cancer therapies work more effectively.
A new way in which cancer cells can repair DNA damage has been discovered by researchers at the University of Birmingham.
These new findings shed new light on how cancer cells react to chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and also uncover a new way in which cancer can become resistant to targeted treatments. These insights may help clinicians decide on different cancer treatments that can be more targeted to specific patients.
Repairing damage to DNA is vital for cells to remain healthy, and to prevent diseases like cancer from developing. Understanding how DNA repair works is crucial to better understand how cancer develops, and also how anti-cancer treatment such as radiotherapy and chemotherapy can be used effectively to induce DNA damage that kill cancer cells.