In Brief
Radiation Fingerprint Discovered in the Human Genome
Scientists at the Helmholtz Zentrum München have discovered that thyroid cancer caused by nuclear fallout displays a specific change in the genetic make-up.
The team of researchers around Prof. Dr Horst Zitzelsberger investigated the genetic material of tumours from a group of thyroid cancer patients who as children had been subjected to the radioactive fallout from Chernobyl in 1986. They found a genomic amplification of DNA on the long arm of chromosome 7. This finding was not verified in any of the patients from the control group, who came from the same region but had been born at least one year after the nuclear disaster. Zitzelsberger and his team now intend to support their results in the context of a new EU project and more closely investigate the affected genes in combination with various doses of radiation.
