Thanks to a groundbreaking research, personalised cancer treatment may soon be on the anvil.

A team at Chicago University has discovered a genetic signature which can predict whether a patient will respond to cancer therapies -- it could identify those who need drugs and radiotherapy and those needed to be treated less aggressively.

In fact, in their study, researchers have found that many cancers show abnormalities in 49 genes, collectively known as IFN-related DNA damage resistance signature (IRDS), the 'New Scientist' reported.

Subsequently, they analysed 34 different cancer cell lines and several hundred primary human cancers and found that the IRDS was associated with resistance to radiotherapy among the cell lines from certain cancers.

However, in breast cancer patients, it correctly predicted which cancers would be resistant to radiotherapy and drugs that work by causing DNA damage in dividing cells -- although not other cancer drugs.

Their findings are published in the latest edition of the 'Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences' journal.

In a separate study, a team at the Cambridge Research Institute has discovered how breast cancers become resistant to tamoxifen drug -- a finding that can lead to the discovery of new drugs and ways of screening patients who are unlikely to respond to that medicine.

Around 75 per cent of breast cancers are fuelled by the hormone oestrogen. Tamoxifen works by blocking oestrogen receptors, but cancers can get around this problem simply by expressing an alternative receptor called Her2.

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