LINDA'S 68th (and my 150th)

Pretty surely a birthday

 Maybe her 60th, or my 72nd

 Marion (Linda's mother), Linda, me

 I still wear that shirt and ring, but not all that hair

 

Tomorrow is Linda’s 68^th birthday.  I greatly wish that I could have gone to 4^th Corner Quilts and bought her some fabric.  But as I’ve said someplace before, fabric is free in heaven, so I donated a bit to her Fred Hutch “Tribute” page instead.  If you would like to do likewise (and you certainly don’t have to, of course), go to http://getinvolved.fhcrc.org/site/TR?pg=fund&fr_id=1050&pxfid=2861 .  Don’t forget to specify “ovarian”.

Now that my ever so subtle attempt to extort more money from you is complete, I can get to further business.  Not only am I celebrating Linda’s birthday (tomorrow), but I  am also marking my 150^th blog!  The first 100 were churned out, on average, one every 77 hours.  Now the pace has slowed – to one every 94 hours.  It’s not that my enthusiasm has weakened; it’s more that the stuff I am studying now is tougher to assimilate and report on adequately.  If I am easy on myself and merely parrot the original articles you will sigh, look at the picture, then go on with your lives.  So I struggle to actually understand the subject well enough to make it comprehensible.  It’s good beneficial, salutary mental exercise; about the only part of my slowly mortifying body not affected by age is my brain.  I hope.

So, as I mentioned a week or so ago, I am trying to help Dr. Rivkin with one of his projects, by writing “laymen’s” versions of certain topics.  I will fill this blog out by giving you a taste. 

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CAUSES OF CANCER

Cancer results from one or more genetic accidents.  As described earlier, cancer will only occur if the mechanism that controls cell division is not functioning properly.  This proper functioning can be disrupted if one or more genes are damaged (mutated), or the factors that control which genes are expressed  (used to create functional molecules called “proteins”) are themselves disabled.  These changes can result from the effects of carcinogens (tobacco smoke, radiation, some chemicals, etc.) or can arise spontaneously because of random errors made during the process of cell division  Under some circumstances these genetic defects may accumulate, and may result in the loss of control over cell division and cell death.  If this occurs, cells will rapidly divide and multiply, resulting in a tumor. 

 Some people are particularly susceptible to cancer, probably because they are born with one or more important genetic defects.  For instance, women born with a mutation of a gene called BRCA are much more likely to develop ovarian or breast cancer than women without this defect.  BRCA is a tumor suppressor gene.  It  “codes for” a protein that acts to repair damage to DNA.  If the BRCA protein is unavailable to do its work, mutations may accumulate, and cancer may occur.  Other such genes are known that, when rendered non-functional, contribute to the likelihood of cancer, and probably many more remain to be identified.  It is important to realize that the presence of such genetic malfunctions does not lead inevitably to cancer; it merely increases the probability of developing cancer. 

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What Saul will do with stuff like this is unknown to me, but it does serve to keep me off the streets.  Otherwise I might be mugging teen-agers.