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Cancer Caused by Dormant Oncogenes

J. Michael Bishop & Harold Varmus —National Library of Medicine

In the year 1864 Ellen White wrote the following statement:

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.

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:

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.

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

What do you think of this insight about dormant oncogenes?

She must have been a super-smart scientist with expensive lab equipment. Beats me. I don't have a clue how she knew about that. She should be given a Nobel prize posthumously. Maybe God told her. That does happen, you know.   View Results