In June 2013, I described how sequencing the highly abnormal genomes of cancer cells can identify some of the mutations that drive the progress of the disease (and how that’s only the beginning of the story). In the discussion that ensued, reader BlueSky3 commented:
Hope more likely rests in examining the control systems/defence mechanisms of those carrying a hereditary cancer fault which has perhaps persisted in evolutionary time. Not all mutation carriers succumb. Why not?
This comment was so interesting that it’s been percolating at the back of my brain for months. We know that smokers have a highly elevated risk of developing lung, throat, or oral cancer – but some of them don’t. Why?
Read the full, original story: Unbreakable: do superheroes, impervious to cancer, walk among us?
