The following is a transcript of a report by medical editor Marilyn Brooks that first aired Jan. 10, 2008, on WTAE Channel 4 Action News at 5 p.m.

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A Carnegie Mellon University scientist has discovered a combination of genes that make cells divide nonstop, resulting in cancer.

The finding could eventually help solve the mystery of cancer and put a stop to it.

Scientists at CMU, with the help of those in Germany and Israel, have taken the first steps.

Cancer patients like Melissa Carper know just how quickly cancer can change your life. At 48, she is battling advanced lung cancer, even though she's never smoked in her life.

"I kind of feel like I didn't do any of those things and I still get this disease," she said.

It happens in 10 percent of cancer cases. For the moment, why is unimportant. No matter the type, cancer is a very complex disease, but all types have one thing in common, which is the uncontrolled growth of cells.

Normally, cells divide every 24 hours in a very orderly fashion. One becomes two, then three, then four, etcetera. They all have a controlled start and stop time. But when they divide nonstop in a chaotic fashion, the result can be cancer.

What Dr. Ziv Bar-Joseph has discovered for the first time is a bundle of 100 genes that make the difference between healthy and cancer cells.

"What we are not sure is which of these 100 genes are really the important ones, so it might be, it's probably the case that many of these are just the effect of the important ones that are included in the set, but its hard for us to distinguish now which are the key participants," said Bar-Joseph. "If we can come up with a way to identify what are the causes and target, then yes. We may be able to stop cell division in at least for some of the cancers."

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