Medical Center

The first genetic maps of lung cancer and melanoma reveal the pivotal role of smoking and sunlight in triggering these two deadly forms of cancer. In two new studies, researchers have sequenced the genome and mapped the entire series of thousands of genetic mutations that are not inherited but accumulate in the cells to cause small-cell lung cancer and melanoma. The results show most of the 23,000 gene mutations associated with small-cell lung cancer are caused by the cocktail of chemicals found in cigarettes.

“On the basis of average estimates, we can say that one mutation is fixed in the genome for every 15 cigarettes smoked,” says researcher Peter Campbell, of the Cancer Genome Project at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, England, in a news release.

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