Posted on: Friday, January 14, 2005
Gene studies likely key to cancer cures
By Robbie Dingeman
Advertiser Health Writer
Nobel laureate Dr. J. Michael Bishop sees hope for winning the war on cancer in recent research that links cancer to genetic abnormalities.
"We now know that cancer results from damage to DNA and the genes that it carries, damage that scientists call mutations," he said yesterday at the Hawai'i Bioscience Conference at the Hawai'i Convention Center.
The two-day conference, which concludes today, officially opens the new Kaka'ako campus of the University of Hawai'i's John A. Burns School of Medicine.
Cancer is now the No. 2 killer in the United States, second only to cardiovascular disease. Worldwide, there are 10 million new cases of cancer annually and 6 million deaths attributed to the disease, said Bishop, chancellor and professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of California, San Francisco.
He pointed to several examples where scientists have been able to successfully target some kinds of cancer in certain cases.
In 1987, a team of Chinese scientists found that acute promyelocytic leukemia could be cured for the first time by the use of retinoic acid — a relative of Vitamin A — which reverses the damage caused by the disease, Bishop said. He noted that this treatment, when used with other more conventional means, can cure the disease.
"Regrettably, retinoic acid is useful for only that one leukemia," he said.
By getting a genetic profile of the different kinds of cancer, scientists can find specific cures to match.
"Just as we presently base the choice of antibiotic therapy on the specific sensitivities of the infectious agent, the treatment of every cancer may someday be individualized and tailor-made," he said.
Bishop said these discoveries offer hope for significant improvements in managing cancer.
"No single therapy for cancer, no matter how specific and elegant, is likely to become a panacea," he said. "So, it is most unlikely that there will ever be one cure for cancer. Instead, it is likely that there will be many cures to match the many forms of cancer."
Reach Robbie Dingeman at rdingeman@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2429.
