To alter the pair of cancer-related genes of mice lungs, scientists at Stanford have a novel way. This method also aids in accurate tracking of tumor cells. This technique is believed to drastically accelerate the speed of cancer drug development and research.

This would enable the scientists to imitate and then analyze the cells detected in tumor’s genetic diversity out of the lab premises.

Senior author of the study and a geneticist at Stanford’s School of Medicine, Monte Winslow said, “Human cancers are not just tumor repression mutation, they also have combinations. Now the query arises, do diverse mutate genes cope with each other or not?”

The study was published in the journal Nature Genetics.

Some years back, such study could have turned out to be a huge effort in such long years. It could be obligatory to breed various genetically tailored mice families, that too with unlike pair of tumor suppressor genes that are inactive. There will be a need for a large number of mice to reveal and test all the probable grouping.

Moreover, Winslow and his team carried out an experiment with help of approximately more than a dozen mice. On this, he said, “With this experiment, we managed to figure out more number of genotypes of lung cancer tumors, in contrast to the overall field has identified in last 15 Years.”

The whole achievement was accomplished with the help of a powerful tool dedicated for gene-editing that can effortlessly delete, replace, and modify genetics sequence of the organism to develop several tumors that are genetically distinct in animal lungs.

Winslow said, “Thousand of clonal tumors can be induced in a single mouse.”

The joint efforts of the team resulted in a hybrid technique which can be valuable for drug testing for cancer. The amalgamation of DNA barcoding and CRISPR-Cas9 might let scientists imitate in the lab, the type of genetic diversity seen in cancer patients.