It only took two oncogenes and it all happened in a few weeks.

FORBES: Cells Get a Makeover, Cancer Follows: A Path to New Therapies (and a Warning to Stem Cell Alchemists)

In another remarkable discovery, it has been shown that pseudogenes are capable of regulating tumor suppressors and oncogenes by acting as microRNA decoys.

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Chen and her group hoped to induce the cancer by activating oncogenes, genes that trigger cancer, in a group of liver cells called hepatocytes.

FORBES: Cells Get a Makeover, Cancer Follows: A Path to New Therapies (and a Warning to Stem Cell Alchemists)

Prof Balasubramaninan said that was of key interest in the study of cancers, which were usually driven by genes, or oncogenes, that had mutated to increase DNA replication.

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If hepatocytes and their genomes become disarrayed by disease, Willenbring says, it may activate oncogenes in the same way their experiment did, causing the cells to change identity and form cancers.

FORBES: Cells Get a Makeover, Cancer Follows: A Path to New Therapies (and a Warning to Stem Cell Alchemists)