--- title: Cancer Genes Provide Insight Into How Cancer Should be Treated description: New discoveries suggest breast cancer's distinctive genetic patterns could pave the way for more personalized treatment in the future. canonical: https://time.com/4313648/new-breast-cancer-genes/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-05-02T15:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:55:41.463Z article:section: Health og:title: Cancer Genes Provide Insight Into How Cancer Should be Treated og:description: New discoveries suggest breast cancer's distinctive genetic patterns could pave the way for more personalized treatment in the future. og:url: https://time.com/4313648/new-breast-cancer-genes/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt936a5938ac00481d/698868f2cf40a8237cc4044e/breast-cancer-02.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: breast cancer og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Cancer Genes Provide Insight Into How Cancer Should be Treated twitter:description: New discoveries suggest breast cancer's distinctive genetic patterns could pave the way for more personalized treatment in the future. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt936a5938ac00481d/698868f2cf40a8237cc4044e/breast-cancer-02.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Personalized Breast Cancer Treatment Gets Closer to Reality > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=ea8e4590-1027-4a32-83e8-2b097efab294&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: More Women are Opting for Double Mastectomies [Watch (HLS stream): More Women are Opting for Double Mastectomies](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/E7vEIxir.m3u8) (1:13)  _Published 2016-03-12. In many cases a double mastectomy is life saving, but a growing number of experts are saying women are removing healthy breasts, and it isn't improving survival rates._ by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin May 2, 2016 3:00 PM UTC  Patient waiting on examination table Patient waiting on examination table Getty Images (1); Illustration by Mia Tramz for TIME by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin May 2, 2016 3:00 PM UTC New research adds fuel to the movement toward more personalized treatments for [cancer](http://time.com/4057310/breast-cancer-overtreatment/). In two corresponding studies published Monday in the journals _Nature_ and _Nature Communications_, researchers sequenced the genomes of 560 [breast cancers](http://time.com/4057310/breast-cancer-overtreatment/) from people around the world and discovered five new genes that may spur breast cells to turn into breast cancer cells. The report marks the largest whole-genome sequencing study of a single [cancer](http://time.com/4142592/with-early-breast-cancer-treatment-less-may-be-more-studies/) type. “We wanted to be able to profile each cancer patient, to see if we could further our understanding of personal cancer genomes,” says lead study author Dr. Serena Nik-Zainal of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in an email to TIME. The research team was also able to identify 13 gene mutation patterns, called mutational signatures. These signatures are imprints of the biological processes that go awry in cells when they turn into cancer, says Nik-Zainal. “We can pull all this data together—the genes and the mutation patterns in each patient—\[to\] determine the personalized genomic profile of each cancer patient and through comparing and contrasting these patients, learn a lot about individual patient cancers,” she says. The researchers suggest that the distinctiveness of breast cancer profiles could eventually be used to identify other people with cancer with similar abnormalities. In the study published in _Nature Communications_ the researchers observed that the mutations that appear in cancer vary in terms of where they occur throughout the genome. “We know genetic changes and their position in the cancer genome influence how a person responds to a cancer therapy… This study both gave us the first large-scale view of the rest of the genome, uncovering some new reasons why breast cancer arises, and gave us an unexpected way to characterize the types of mutations that happen in certain breast cancers,” said study author Dr. Ewan Birney of the European Bioinformatics Institute [in a statement](http://www.eurekalert.org/emb%5Freleases/2016-05/wtsi-fnb042816.php). Nik-Zainal says the next step for the research is to use the genomic data in clinical trials to test different drugs. “I envision a future where we would all get our bits of tumor and biopsied tissue sequenced at the point of suspicion of cancer,” she says. “This should help us know all the important genes and all the important signatures that are present and give us critical clinical interpretation that then could help guide treatment options.” She adds: “As we gather more a more data, we will learn more about each cancer and improve on our methods to treat everyone more efficiently and more effectively.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4313648/new-breast-cancer-genes/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4313648/new-breast-cancer-genes/"},"headline":"Personalized Breast Cancer Treatment Gets Closer to Reality","datePublished":"2016-05-02T15:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:55:41.463Z","description":"Breast cancer's distinctive genetic patterns could pave the way for more personalized treatment in the future","url":"https://time.com/4313648/new-breast-cancer-genes/","keywords":["Breast Cancer","Cancer"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt936a5938ac00481d/698868f2cf40a8237cc4044e/breast-cancer-02.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alexandra Sifferlin","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt936a5938ac00481d/698868f2cf40a8237cc4044e/breast-cancer-02.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"breast cancer","caption":"breast cancer","creditText":"Getty Images (1); Illustration by Mia Tramz for TIME","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/tag/breast-cancer/","name":"Breast Cancer"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4313648/new-breast-cancer-genes/","name":"Personalized Breast Cancer Treatment Gets Closer to Reality"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"More Women are Opting for Double Mastectomies","description":"In many cases a double mastectomy is life saving, but a growing number of experts are saying women are removing healthy breasts, and it isn't improving survival rates.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/E7vEIxir/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2016-03-12T17:03:54.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/E7vEIxir.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4313648/new-breast-cancer-genes/","duration":"PT1M13S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4313648/new-breast-cancer-genes/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```