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The Fusarium fungi have an expansive reach. Some plague tomatoes, while others attack bananas; some invade cereal crops and can poison bread with toxins. Species of Fusarium have found ways to penetrate the defenses of potatoes, peppers, eggplants, and other plants, causing wilting, rot, and blight. And now, the ubiquitous fungi are beginning to crop up in hospitals, attacking patients whose immune systems have been compromised.

False-colored chromosomes
This chromosome "painting" depicts the landscape of a normal cell's genome. The chromosomes have been false colored to indicate deletions, duplications, and translocations. Cancer cells acquire many, many more of these genetic alterations, some of which may drive cancer development.
Image courtesy of Steven M. Carr, © 2008, after original by Genetix, with permission

An international team of researchers has created a genome-scale map of 26 different cancers, revealing more than 100 genomic sites where DNA from tumors is either missing or abnormally duplicated compared to normal tissues. The study, the largest of its kind, finds that most of these genetic abnormalities are not unique to one form of cancer, but are shared across multiple cancers. The work appears in the February 18 issue of the journal Nature.