Jump to full article: Times Of London (uk), 2008-04-04
Author: JUNK MEDICINE: MARK HENDERSON
Intro: the link was found by three independent teams.
These groups, however, differed in their explanations. One attributed the gene's impact to its effect on smoking behaviour, finding that people with the risky version become addicted more easily and smoke more. Another came to the opposite conclusion, finding that the raised risk was independent of tobacco consumption, and applied even to people who have never smoked.
Either way, this gene is important. But before it can contribute much to medical research, we are going to have to establish who is right.
Locating the gene is a big step forward, but it is only the first of many. It is understanding how it works that will open new approaches to treating lung cancer, or to helping smokers to give up.
As a commentary in the journal Nature said this week, our expectations of genetic research need to be managed in the manner of Winston Churchill. The wonderful fruits of whole-genome association studies are not the beginning of the end of the struggle to understand genetic diseases. It is better to think of them as the end of the beginning.
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