termsTerm
Gene
aka genes, genetic
A stretch of DNA that holds the recipe for one protein (or one working RNA). Humans have about 20,000, and cancer typically involves a handful of them going wrong.
A gene includes the coding sequence itself and the regulatory regions that decide when, where and how much it is read. Cancer-relevant genes fall into two broad classes: oncogenes, whose overactivity drives growth, and tumour suppressors, whose loss removes a brake. Gene names on this site (EGFR, KRAS, BRCA1, TP53) refer both to the gene and to the protein it encodes; a drug 'targets EGFR' means it blocks the EGFR protein, while 'EGFR-mutant' means the gene carries a change that alters the protein.
Category
Biology basics