Question ID: WS-42
Submitted by: Jerry Shay
February 5, 2011
For years we have been studying families with genetic susceptibility to cancer. However, I have not heard about studying individuals with NO history of cancer in their families. This provocative question first poses if there are indeed families with several generations that never seem to get cancer and if so what this may tell us about the genetics and/or epigenetics of cancer? Second, if there are such multi-generation of families without cancer, how can we exploit this knowledge to reduce or delay the incidence of cancer in the general population? One thought is to study families that include centenarians which appear to delay all disease including cancer until very late in life. Everything that affects the general populations appears to be delayed 20-30 years in families that have individuals living into their late 90s or even into their 100's.
Average Score: 4.0
 (1 evaluation)Provocativeness - 5.0
Novelty - 5.0
Public Health Significance - 3.0
Feasibility - 3.0
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