THE GENOME AND CANCER

                                                          The Wyoming death march

Of all the stupid whims I ever inflicted on Linda, this might be the worst.  We were camping in Wyoming and I noticed (on my TOPOGRAPHIC MAP!) that there was a lake about 3 miles away, so I suggested that we take a little hike and see it.  I guess I forgot to notice that it was also 3000 ft. below our campground, hence going there - and coming back - would entail a mighty climb.  This picture shows her at the top of the climb, no doubt trying to convince herself that I meant well and she could put up with me for a few more years!  To make the fiasco even  worse, we were followed up the traill by some bozo with a pistol, who kept taking pot-shots at anything that moved.  Linda hated guns.  We turned the bozo in - I hope they threw the book at him.  Anyway...

There is a very interesting article in the current NCI Cancer Bulletin  which I will summarize for you, although you would be better served by reading it yourself: (http://www.cancer.gov/ncicancerbulletin,) and read the “Conversation” with Dr. Bert Vogelstein of Johns Hopkins University about his Whole Genome Sequencing project.  Vogelstein and co-authors used data from the Swedish Twin Registry (who would have guessed there was such a thing?) to predict what value whole genome sequencing will have – in the future – in mitigating the effects of cancer and other disease.  My take-away message from this work is that we should double and then redouble our efforts to detect cancer early, and to identify and insofar as is possible eliminate  environmental  factors that contribute to its cause.   First, genome studies are expensive:  ~$5000 now, but perhaps ~$1000 in a few years.  Second, most cancers are not caused by heredity, so getting a clean bill of health on a genome study might lead to a false sense of security.  And, finally, many (most?) people with suspicious heredity still will not contract cancer; why condemn the poor sods to a lifetime of worry? 

There are many references in this article to ovarian cancer.  Did you know that obesity is an adverse “environmental factor” for OC?  I certainly didn’t.