Cancer Caused by Dormant Oncogenes
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J. Michael Bishop & Harold Varmus
—National Library of Medicine |
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In the year 1864 Ellen White wrote the following statement:
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Cancerous humor, which would lay dormant in the
system their life-time, is inflamed, and commences its
eating, destructive work.—Appeal to Mothers, p. 27.
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Rather interesting.
"Cancerous humor" is terminology that is a bit antiquated today.
Back then, "humor" typically referred to some sort of bodily fluid. It therefore
appears to us that Ellen White was talking about something other than muscle or
bone, something that had the potential of either remaining dormant or
becoming cancerous after becoming "inflamed."
In 1989, J. Michael Bishop and Harold Varmus won the Nobel Prize for Physiology
or Medicine for their work on cancer. Specifically, they showed how normal genes in
cells could be converted by viruses or chemicals into something that causes cancer:
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Working with the Rous sarcoma virus,
known to cause cancer in chickens, Bishop and Varmus found that a gene
similar to the cancer-causing gene within the virus was also present
in healthy cells.
In 1976 Bishop and Varmus, together with two colleagues—Dominique
Stehelin and Peter Vogt—published their findings, concluding that the
virus had taken up the gene responsible for the cancer from a normal cell.
After the virus had infected the cell and begun its usual process of
replication, it incorporated the gene into its own genetic material.
Subsequent research showed that such genes can cause cancer in several
ways. Even without viral involvement, these genes can be converted by
certain chemical carcinogens into a form that allows uncontrolled
cellular growth.
Because the mechanism described by Bishop and Varmus seemed
common to all forms of cancer, their work proved invaluable to
cancer research. By 1989 scientists had identified more than 40
genes having cancer-causing potential in
animals.—"Bishop, J(ohn) Michael," Encyclopedia Britannica Ultimate
Reference Suite 2004 DVD.
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Thus there indeed is something subcellular in the human body that can remain dormant
or can be triggered in a number of ways to become cancerous.
So Bishop and Varmus won the Nobel prize for their work. So did
Francis Peyton Rous, who became
famous after proving a theory about the cause of cancer that was considered
ludicrous at the time. Oddly, Ellen White had endorsed his theory five years
before he ever proposed it. (See Cancer
Caused by an Infectious Agent.)
Ambitious scientists out there could take note of this trend.
If they can locate some oddity in Mrs. White's writings that if proven
true would benefit humanity, and if they can find a way to prove it to be
true, they might be able to win a Nobel prize too.
Give Us Your Opinion
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