Scientists from Duke-NUS Medical School and their collaborators have identified an inherited genetic variation prevalent among East Asians that contributes to drug resistance, driving the aggressive growth of cancer cells in patients with chronic myeloid leukemia. To address this, the team's pioneering approach involves inhibiting the action of a protein called MCL-1, with laboratory studies showing promising results in effectively killing cancer cells resistant to conventional treatments . These findings, which were published in the journal Leukemia , demonstrate the importance of genetic profiling to develop precise and more effective treatments for patients with cancer.
One-sixth of human cancers harbor genetic variations, but few studies have established how that affects treatment outcomes. The team sought to answer this question by homing in on an inherited genetic variation that affects patients with leukemia. In 2020, leukemia (cancer of the blood) accounted for approximately 2.
5% of all new cancer cases and 3.1% of deaths globally. Of these, chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a subtype that primarily affects the bone marrow, which produces blood cells.
The Duke-NUS scientists, in collaboration with their partners, including Singapore General Hospital and The Jackson Laboratory, developed the first pre-clinical model with a common genetic variation among the population of the East Asian region, which includes Chinese, Japanese and Korean people. About 12 to 15% of peopl.
