Using DNA mapping, researchers have finally traced cancer to its genetic roots, according to a study published in the journal Nature.

Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis decoded the DNA of a cancer sufferer, a female patient in her 50's with AML, and identified 10 gene mutations which seemed to be essential to the development of the woman's acute myeloid leukaemia.

Two samples from the patient were collected and her DNA was examined to spot dissimilarities. Whereas one of the samples was extracted from healthy skin cells, the other one was taken from bone marrow tissue containing cancerous cells. Researchers were baffled by the discovery: by applying the sequencing technique, they found that almost every unhealthy cell carried 9 of the 10 key mutations.

Also known as acute myelogenous leukemia, AML is a cancer of blood forming cells in the bone marrow. About 1.2 percent of cancer deaths in the U.S. are attributable to the disease, and its rate is said to increase as the population ages. Common symptoms of AML include shortness of breath, exhaustion, easy bruising and bleeding, and high risk of infection.

As stated by geneticist Dr. Francis Collins, who recently left his position as director of the U.S. National Human Genome Research Institute, the findings are a "true landmark in cancer research.”

“This is the first of many of these whole cancer genomes to be sequenced,” said lead researcher Richard K. Wilson, director of Washington University’s Genome Sequencing Center. “They’ll give us a whole bunch of clues about what’s going on in the DNA when cancer starts to bloom.”