New study on Blood cancer

Why in news?

A Study at DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Hyderabad, have come up with new insights on Leukemia.

What is Leukemia?

Leukemia is cancer of the blood or bone marrow which produces blood cells.
A person who has leukemia suffers from an abnormal production of blood cells.
There are several stages of maturation in a white blood cell's lifespan.
Acute leukemia crowds out the good cells more quickly than chronic leukemia.
Treatment requires holistic approach of financial support, psychological support, and a patient tracking system.

What is the status of leukemia in India?

Acute leukemia cases are recorded across India.
There are nearly 25,000 children diagnosed with cancer in India every year and around 9000 of these have leukemia.
There would be 90,000 children with leukemia in a decade in India.
The data of those children who are treated are missing.

What are the findings of the study?

Mixed Lineage Leukemia (MLL) protein is closely associated with leukemia (blood cancer) in children and adults.
The protein plays a crucial role in cell division by regulating chromosome segregation.
The absence of MLL itself gives rise to genomic instability and makes the cell prone to cancer.
Efforts has been made to discover the essential cellular functions of MLL.
Kinesin ‘motor’ protein Kif2AK is responsible for organizing MLL cells and associated with several kinds of cancers.

What is the way forward?

The study helps in clear understanding the blood cancer.
The genome editing techniques can be carried out with a wide knowledge of MLL protein cells.
This breakthrough findings will help the Indian pharma sector to introduce new life saving drugs.

Quick fact

DNA fingerprinting is a method used to identify an individual from a sample of DNA by looking at unique patterns in their DNA.
DNA fingerprinting was to extract DNA from a sample of human material, usually blood.
This technology is globally used in solving the crimes.

Source: Business Line