What if someone tells you that possessing diverse genes could improve your chances of combating infections and even fighting off cancer? The divergent allele advantage hypothesis tries to explain this phenomenon. It states that possessing a greater variety of certain genes (alleles are variants of a gene) can improve individual survival. That would be just … Continue reading Embracing differences to boost anti-tumor immunity: How HLA diversity can improve cancer therapy
Tag: cancer
Strength in numbers: extra copies of the TP53 gene helps elephants fight cancer
Today’s story begins with Peto’s paradox – the observation that larger animals should have higher cancer incidence than smaller animals, but don’t (1). Fundamentally, cancer is caused by DNA damage. Large animals have many cells and usually also have long lifespans. As a result, their numerous cells duplicate many times and are exposed to a … Continue reading Strength in numbers: extra copies of the TP53 gene helps elephants fight cancer