Scientists have revealed the detailed genetic makeup of thousands of cancer samples, yielding new insights into the genes that drive the many and varied forms of the disease.

The results, published in a landmark collection of research papers in the journal Nature interpret the complete DNA sequences, or cancer genomes, of 2,658 cancer samples. This will further our understanding of the crucial “driver” mutations that underpin cancer development and offer potential as targets for treatments such as chemotherapy.

It is the work of some 700 scientists around the world, as part of an international project called the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes.

The hallmark of a cancer cell is its unregulated growth. The mechanism that allows these cells to escape normal cellular growth regulation involves the introduction of mutations into the cancer cell’s DNA. The collection of mutations present in a particular cancer genome is thus known as that cancer’s “mutation signature”.