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Fifty years since DNA repair was linked to cancer

In 1968, a defect in DNA repair was found to underlie a disorder that makes people extremely sensitive to sunlight. This finding continues to influence research into the origins, diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
  1. Richard D. Wood

    1. Richard D. Wood is in the Department of Epigenetics and Molecular Carcinogenesis, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Smithville, Texas 78957, USA.

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Some people are born with exceptional sensitivity to sunlight. Fifty years ago, writing in Nature, the biologist James Cleaver1 reported a study of one such condition, and concluded that a failure of DNA repair was related to the extreme susceptibility of affected individuals to skin cancer. This was the first description of defective DNA repair in a genetically inherited disorder that makes people prone to cancer. The concepts that developed from this work now permeate research into the genetic origins of cancer and its treatment.

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Nature 557, 648-649 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-05255-1

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