The breakthrough in decoding cancer genes by scientists at Britain's Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute provides a major step in cracking the cancer conundrum. This disease has dogged for as long as we have recorded history and is historically known as being lethal.
Somewhat strangely, in the recent times, it does not get as much public attention as "lifestyle" diseases like AIDS, diabetes or cardiac complications, except perhaps when the cancer concerned has a "lifestyle" connection, like tobacco or urban stress. However, millions of people will die from cancer-related illnesses every year and this research carefully follows and reveals when our cells start mutating to kill us.
The mapping of the genetic damage caused by lung and skin cancer — two major killers — will allow scientists to study which "mutate" switch is flicked on in a cell and with that knowledge effective treatment and prevention can be researched and plotted. Lung cancer alone kills about one million people every year and tobacco is a clear factor here. This research suggests that there is one mutation for every 15 cigarettes.
Of course, lung cancer is one of those diseases where the connection with an outside factor is well-established and now further corroborated by this research. But it will now be possible to find cures or effective treatments for other cancers, where connections are not so obvious. Genetic research is allowing us to look at the building blocks of life and this means that we can, potentially, fix problems before they happen. Like stem cell research which uses our origins in a physical sense to look for solutions, genome mapping cuts down to the absolute basics.
This is not the same as the infamous eugenics, which attempted to manipulate our genes to create "super humans". This is about finding who we are and trying to save lives. There is a small but essential difference here. But like stem cell research, genetics and its offshoots will have its detractors, who are more often than not frightened by what they do not understand. But as the late great anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss had said, "Science will never give us all the answers. What we can try to do is to increase very slowly the number and the quality of the answers we are able to give, and this, I think, we can only through science."
This new research gives us some very vital clues which will help us find some answers to help or alleviate some suffering. Nature has given our bodies a chilling ability to turn on us — and that is what cancer is. Here, we may not find a way to cheat Nature but we could at least help ourselves in whatever way we can.
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