Delicious, but don't eat too many of them
Well, I’m back from my brief visit to Linda and Paul’s
beautiful farm in western Wisconsin, and ready to resume tormenting you with
news from the research front in the war on cancer. But first: while on the farm I participated in an important discovery. It transpires that certain fields in that farm are the breeding ground of an unbelievable profusion of
delicious morel mushrooms. Morels grow
around here (NW Washington), but collecting them requires much walking through
dense woods, and an eagle eye. Here, you
are lucky to find a half-dozen per hour.
On the Kelly farm they pop their little heads up every few feet, and beg
to be tossed in the sack. Truth be told,
I ate so many I got a wee bit sick.
Anyway, science went on in my absence. I particularly want to call your attention to
an article in the Daily Bruin – presumably the UCLA student newspaper – about some
research recently published in the prestigious journal Nature Genetics. The gist:
There are 25 known regions in the genome, glitches in which
can contribute to the probability of contracting ovarian cancer.
Every woman, especially women known to suffer from OVCA,
should have her genome sequenced. For one
thing, modern cancer treatment schemes are influenced to a considerable extent by
whichever genetic mistake is responsible.
You can inherit your genetic errors as readily from your
father as from your mother. You don’t have
to have ovaries to pass on OVCA.
We are making progress: the death rate from OVCA currently
is about six per 100,000 women, whereas about 2000 it was more like nine. Of course, that’s still six too many.
So, read this brief, clear and valuable article:
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