Scientists with the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center at the Johns Hopkins University have managed to draw a map of the genetic mutations involved in two of the most aggressive cancers: glioblastoma, the most common form of brain cancer, and pancreatic cancer.

Researchers found 12 pathways - a series of successive molecular changes in a cell - that were abnormal in most of the tumors. The findings offer a different perspective from the approach currently taken by most drug companies, suggesting that it may be more productive to target the specific pathways. The genomic analysis found an average of 63 genetic alterations in pancreatic cancer and 12 cellular pathways. The average brain tumor had 60 genetic alterations, researchers found.

"It is extremely unlikely that drugs which target a single gene like Gleevec will be active against a major fraction of solid tumors. Instead of screening for drugs against single proteins, our work suggests that it may be more productive to screen for drugs that act against core pathways," said Dr. Bert Vogelstein of Hopkins and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Scientists hope the findings may eventually lead to the discovery of better treatments, new diagnostic tests and new drugs to cure the disease. The discovery opens the door to finding cancer before it has spread, when it can still be cured by means of surgery.

Cancer is a common deadly disease that affects millions of people. Each year about 37,680 individuals in the U.S. are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, a malignant tumor of the pancreas, and 34,290 die from the disease.