Researchers at Mount Sinai Identify New Gene That Drives Colon Cancer

Researchers at Mount Sinai’s Tisch Cancer Institute have identified a new gene that is essential to colon cancer growth and found that inflammation in the external environment around the tumor can contribute to the growth of tumor cells. The scientists reported these findings in Nature Communications in October.

This is the first time that scientists have discovered that the environment around a colon cancer tumor can program what is known as a “super enhancer,” a complex area of DNA with a high concentration of transcriptional machinery that controls whether a cell is malignant.