In a project expected to cost $US1.35 billion over nine years, the United States Government's proposed "Human Cancer Genome Project", will open a new front in the battle against cancer, say US health officials.
It is uncertain at present where the money will come from but the initiative is likely to start with some smaller pilot projects. The plan is to compile a complete catalogue of the genetic abnormalities that characterise cancer and will be greater in scale than the human genome project, which mapped the human genetic blueprint. It would seek to determine the DNA sequence of thousands of tumour samples, looking for mutations that give rise to cancer or sustain it. A databank of all these mutations, would be freely available to researchers and would provide invaluable clues for developing new ways to diagnose, treat and prevent cancer.
Eric Lander, director of the Broad Institute, a genetic research centre in Massachusetts that is affiliated with Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology says knowledge of the defects of the cancer cell points to the" Achilles' heel of tumours".
Some scientists are concerned about the cost and the possibility that a project of this scale could take money away from smaller ones run by individual scientists. Dr Craig Venter, who led a private project to determine the human DNA blueprint in competition with the human genome project, said it would make more sense to look at specific families of genes known to be involved in cancer.