Re[2]: Cancer Caused by New Kind of Gene

July 17, 2009

Hello Bret,

The BRCA genes are not genes for breast cancer. The naming of these

is a bit misleading. They are genes that are related to checkpoints

in the cell cycle. These checkpoints work similar to computer program

checksums. They look at growth and maturation events in the cell

cycle and search for errors. If no errors are detected they allow

the cell to proceed to the next step in growth and replication. With

the damage to the checkpoints they eventually start overlooking

errors in the cell. Eventually they can allow an altered, now

malignant, cell to replicate.

It's not the cancer that is inherited. It is the potential for

faulty quality control.

Mike

Friday, July 17, 2009, 8:32:52 PM, you wrote:

BP> Gene research, when you read it, jumps over so many cause and

BP> affect relationships to arrive at a conclusion that bad genes

BP> cause cancer, " it's a cancer gene. "

BP>

BP> Yet, almost always there are people with the exact same genetic

BP> " mutation " who never do get cancer. Ok, so cancer can't be a

BP> genetic defect. But, wait, what if it were like some kind of

BP> recessive trait that skips generations. If it were recessive it

BP> would numerically bear this out mathematically in family trees. We

BP> could have proven it without million dollar gene research, we

BP> could have proved it just by the math of genetics.

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