Thanks to new research published in the journal Nature and part-funded by Cancer Research UK, we’re a step closer to understanding how alcohol causes cancer.

Professor Ketan Patel, and his team of Cancer Research UK-funded scientists at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, have now uncovered the kind of damage acetaldehyde causes to DNA – the blueprint of life that resides within cells. And in doing so, they’ve shown the way cells prevent this damage and how the damage is fixed if it happens.

Their work focuses on stem cells, a type of cell that supplies the many different specialised cells our bodies are made of. It’s important to understand how the DNA code in stem cells is damaged, because this damage can give rise to different types of cancer.

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