Cancer therapies have come a long way since researchers designed the first radiation and chemotherapy treatments.1 In the past, most cancer researchers focused on finding a single cure for cancer. However, scientists found that the molecular disease mechanisms were highly variable both in different cancers and among the same cancer types. Genetic heterogeneity between and within tumors is now established for most cancers, but this does not explain all tumor progression cases, and cancer remains one of the most prevalent diseases in the country.
The field of epigenetics is now at the forefront of cancer research. Epigenetic changes such as DNA methylation and acetylation alter cell functions without disrupting the DNA code. These changes are common in tumors, but researchers have not yet defined their role in cancer.2 In a recent paper in Cell, researchers at Harvard Medical School revealed that changes in epigenetic methylation patterns directly caused brain tumor ...
