MIT lab cre­ates tool to find can­cer mu­ta­tion dri­vers 'any­where in the genome'

Pre­ci­sion on­col­o­gy has been her­ald­ed as the way for­ward in treat­ing can­cer, but search­ing for dri­ver mu­ta­tions has com­pli­cat­ed that jour­ney as ex­ist­ing meth­ods can’t be ap­plied to the en­tire genome.

But a new method out of MIT looks to change the way can­cer dri­ver mu­ta­tions are found and, in do­ing so, speed up the process. A group out of Bon­nie Berg­er’s lab at the in­sti­tu­tion has de­vel­oped what they named “Dig,” an in­ter­ac­tive map for find­ing dri­ver el­e­ments and mu­ta­tions “any­where in the genome,” ac­cord­ing to a pa­per pub­lished this week in Na­ture Biotech­nol­o­gy.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER