Cancer genetics

“The cloning of ras and retinoblastoma – oncogene and anti-oncogene – was a transformative moment in cancer genetics. In the decade between 1982 and 1993, a horde of other oncogenes and anti-oncogenes (tumor suppressor genes) were swiftly identified in human cancers . . . Retroviruses, the accidental carriers of oncogenes, faded far into the distance. Varmus and Bishop’s theory – that oncogenes were activated cellular genes – was recognized to be widely true for many forms of cancer. And the two-hit hypothesis – that tumor suppressors were genes that needed to be inactivated in both chromosomes – was also found to be widely applicable in cancer. A rather general conceptual framework for carcinogenesis was slowly becoming apparent. The cancer cell was a broken, deranged machine. Oncogenes were its jammed accelerators and inactivated tumor suppressors, its missing brakes” (Mukherjee, 380-381).