Word: knudson
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Knute Knudson Jr., a student at the Kennedy School, said he found the discussion to be the "first time some of the information that I received had some neutral quality to it untainted by South African sources...
Certain types of cancer seem to run in some families, and in the early 1970s a geneticist named Alfred Knudson came up with one explanation: genes that normally protect against the cancer somehow get lost or damaged. Other scientists suggested that these genes serve as "off" switches, restraining cells from replicating ceaselessly and forming malignancies. If the switches are not inherited or are somehow disabled by, say, radiation, chemicals or viruses, cancerous growth might start. Logical enough; but as years passed without hard evidence, people questioned whether such genes existed...
Last week brought vindication for Knudson, now at Philadelphia's Fox Chase Cancer Center. A group of Boston-area scientists announced that they had discovered a gene that normally blocks retinoblastoma, a rare and often hereditary eye cancer that develops in children. The find should lead to an accurate test for genetic susceptibility to the disease and perhaps improved treatment. It has also raised hopes that other genes will soon be found that inhibit the more common cancers of the lung, breast and colon...