Does Complexity Increase Over Time?

In Battling Cancer, a Genome Project Is Proposed
By ANDREW POLLACK

Published: March 28, 2005


Opening a new front in the battle against cancer, federal officials are planning to compile a complete catalog of the genetic abnormalities that characterize it.

The proposed Human Cancer Genome Project, as it is being called for now, would be greater in scale than the Human Genome Project, which mapped the human genetic blueprint. It would seek to determine the DNA sequence of thousands of tumor samples, looking for mutations that give rise to cancer or sustain it.


Proponents say a databank of all such mutations, which would be freely available to researchers, would provide invaluable clues for developing new ways to diagnose, treat and prevent cancer.

"Knowing the defects of the cancer cell points you to the Achilles' heel of tumors," said Dr. Eric S. Lander, director of the Broad Institute, a genetic research center in Cambridge, Mass., that is affiliated with Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The project would cost roughly $1.35 billion over nine years, but where the money will come from is still uncertain. For now, the government is likely to start with some smaller pilot projects, officials said.

Some scientists are dubious about the cost and are concerned that a big science project could take money away from smaller ones run by individual scientists.

Dr. J. Craig Venter, who led a private project to determine the human DNA blueprint in competition with the Human Genome Project, said it would make more sense to look at specific families of genes known to be involved in cancer.

"Diverting a billion or two dollars from other areas of research when it's not clear what answer we'd get, there might be better ways to move cancer research forward," Dr. Venter said.

But Dr. Lander and other proponents say the time is right for such an effort because the Human Genome Project has provided the underlying human DNA sequence with which tumor cells can be compared. In addition, the cost of sequencing is dropping. And discoveries of individual cancer-related genes have already helped lead to new drug therapies.

The proposal, presented last month to an advisory committee to the National Cancer Institute, was drawn up by a group led by Dr. Lander and Dr. Leland H. Hartwell, a Nobel laureate who is president of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Drafters included Dr. Harold Varmus, a Nobel laureate and a former director of the National Institutes of Health, and Dr. Bruce Stillman, president of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island.

Dr. Varmus, president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, said the project could "completely change how we approach cancer."

Leaders of two agencies within the National Institutes of Health that would likely take the lead in financing the project said they were eager to go ahead.

"We are committed to do the sequencing of the cancer genomes," Dr. Anna D. Barker, deputy director for advanced technologies and strategic partnerships at the National Cancer Institute, said in an interview. "What we're trying to do is accelerate progress against this disease."

Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, said, "I can confidently tell you that something will happen here."

The federal officials and Dr. Lander acknowledged that finding money for the project would be difficult in a time of tight budgets. They said that new money would probably have to be appropriated by Congress and that the pharmaceutical industry might contribute because the information would be useful for drug development.

The project, which might end up with a different name, would determine the sequence of the DNA in at least 12,500 tumor samples, 250 samples from each of 50 major types of cancer. By comparing the order of the letters of the genetic code in the tumor samples with one another and with sequences in healthy tissue, it should be possible to pinpoint mutations responsible for cancer.

Typically, damage sustained to one organism is not passed on to descendants.

If you examine the fossil record, it does appear that as time progresses, life has become more complex. It also shows that it remains rather simple.

Brandon, Do you understand anything about science or evolution?

Yes. It is an oft noted characteristic of genetics that acquired traits are not inherited. Failure to understand this was responsible for Russia's disastrous flirtation with Lysenkoism in the mid 20th century. I am not very familiar with situations in which environmental effects caused changes to one organism's genes that were then passed on to descendants, but such a phenomenon would have to be rare.

I can't say I really understood the Gould article, Rosborne, but Gould himself might be a case for complexity, since he tended to take simple problems and make them more complex.

I must be missing something because it seems obvious that life has become more complex. Just the forming of amino acids into complex proteins into living organisms shows that.

Evolution usually stresses competition, but cooperation has been important too, for instance, the ingestion of cyanobacteria by other larger organisms, which later became organelles—cholorplasts, in this case.

Yeah, there is a good chance (a great chance) complexity increases over time.