Investigating why cancer comes back

For a patient with cancer, two of the most important words in the oncologist's lexicon begin with the letter "r": remission and relapse. Why do some patients stay in remission, while others see their cancer return? In recent research published online in July in the journal Leukemia, Paul Liu, M.D., Ph.D., a senior investigator, and Raman Sood, Ph.D., an associate investigator, for the Translational and Functional Genomics Branch at NHGRI, are trying to understand why leukemia patients relapse, and if there are any DNA-level mutations that account for the leukemia coming back.
Source: NHGRI Homepage Highlights - Category: Genetics & Stem Cells Source Type: news