7 DNA fingerprints that decide who may get cancer discovered

Toronto: Rewriting the textbook explanation of why some people are at the higher risk of developing cancer, researchers from University of Calgary have for the first time discovered seven DNA fingerprints or patterns that define cancer risk in people, offering new insight into the multi-generational disease risk.
Lifestyle, or put another way ‘bad habits’, is one of the textbook explanations for why some people are at higher risk for cancer.
But not all smokers get lung cancer and not all people who eat cheeseburgers get bowel cancer, and ‘other factors’ must be at play.
“This discovery rewrites the textbook explanation that cancer occurs because of human behaviour combined with some bad luck to include one’s genetic make-up,” said University of Calgary scientist Dr Edwin Wang.
“We believe that a baby is born with a germline genomic pattern and it will not change, and that pattern is associated with a lower or higher cancer risk,” he said in a paper published in the journal Science Advances.
Germline represents the cells that determine our children and the DNA that is passed from parent to children.