Word: varmus
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...many cancer viruses do not appear to contain oncogenes. These viruses seem to cause cancer in a less direct way, perhaps by altering genes that are already in the normal cell. Investigating this possibility, Microbiologists J. Michael Bishop and Harold Varmus of the University of California School of Medicine at San Francisco made an astonishing discovery: genes almost identical to the cancer-causing genes in viruses can be found in the normal cells of all manner of creatures, from fruit flies to humans. The supposition is that these harmless genes can easily be turned into the dangerous genes they...