The team, at the Gray Institute for Radiation Oncology and Biology at Oxford University, were looking for a protein, called gamma-H2AX, which is produced in response to damaged DNA. This tends to be one of the first steps on the road to a cell becoming cancerous.

BBC: One test may 'find many cancers'

Rapid advances in being able to sequence the genetic code of patients are allowing breakthroughs in understanding which mutations transform a healthy cell into a cancerous one.

BBC: Mass cancer mapping centre opens

Dr Michael Seckl, a medical oncologist, and his team at the hospital found that treating cancerous cells with Taxol and stem cell infusion - an advanced form of bone marrow transplantation - was successful.

BBC: 'Women's cancer drug' offers men hope

The first solid evidence implicating stem cells in cancer came in the early 1990s when John Dick, a stem cell researcher at the University of Toronto, developed a method for transplanting cancerous human bone marrow cells into mice.

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