Scientists at Tulane and LSU mg.flic.al, schools and the Alton Ochsner Medical Foundation are conducting research that may prove invaluable in the treatment and determination of the cause of cancer.
That is what a group of visiting science writers learned over the week end as they interviewed researchers and got first-hand information on experimental work into the effects of cancer on various organs of the body and studies relating to the cause of cancer and cancer control.
Although nothing definite has been established in the way of curing cancer, the results of the studies are expected to produce a wealth of information that could ultimately lead to the discovery of the cause and a cure for cancer. Here is what the American Cancer Society News Service reported:
At LSU, Dr. Walter J. Burdette, surgeon and geneticist, is using a "mutatot gene" in fruit flies to study the cause of cancer. The gene makes other genes mutate by its effect on one or more choromosomes. Such a gene can step up the rate- of many kinds of genetic changes involving the color and organ structure of animals.
Dr. Burdette's studies leave him unconvinced that all tumors are the result of mutations, a current theory of, the origin of cancer.
Dr. Burdette said that most of the mutations studied in the different strains of fruit flies are lethal —the mutation causing death at specific periods during the animal's development.
By crossing strains of flies, Dr. Burdette said, he can determine which genes on the four fruit fly chromosomes cause cancer susceptibility or resistance.
