|
Momodou
Denmark
11790 Posts |
 Posted - 23 Jan 2007 : 13:30:17
|
UTG SEMINAR ON GENETICAL SUSCEPTIBILITY TO CANCER
By Isatou Bittaye
The University of The Gambia (UTG), on Wednesday 17th January 2007 held its second inaugural seminar on the theme "Genetical Susceptibility to Cancer." The presenter at the seminar was Dr. Peter Aka, Senior Scientist MRC The Gambia and was held at the Girls Guide Skill Centre, Kanifing.
In his opening remarks, the Vice Chancellor of the UTG, Professor Andreas Steigen said that cancer is a disease affecting genes and may emanate from external factors like smoking, alcohol and pollution.
In his presentation, Dr. Peter Aka said that cancer is a complex disease like diabetes, heart disease and kidney disease. Dr. Aka added that all complex diseases arise from a combination of changes that occur in the same cell over a period of time. He said that in cancer, these changes accumulate over when a critical number of changes occur in the same cell. Dr. Aka indicated that cancer is caused by the changes in the gene and exposure to smoking, alcohol, pollution or carcinogen.
He noted that there are many different types of cancer, each displaying different combinations of changes. He, however noted that even within a single type, such as lung cancer or colon cancer, clinicans can identify subtypes, each marked by unique set of changes. Dr. Aka indicated that a person who does not drink alcohol and smokes cigarettes may live up to about 90 years without getting liver or lung cancer, another person who smokes and drinks the same amount may get cancer at age 60. He added that a woman's breast cancer responds to chemotherapy and her tumor shrinks while another woman's breast cancer shows no change after the same treatment. In explaining how can these differences be explained, Dr. Aka indicated that scientist think that variations in the human genome called single nucleotide polymorphisms or SNPs can help them to answer these questions and to catalogue the unique sets of changes involved in different cancers.
Dr. Aka noted that scientists see SNPs as a potential tool to improve cancer diagnosis and treatment planning. He added that they also suspect that SNPs may play a role in the different responses to treatments seen among cancer patients. SNPs may also be involved in the different levels of individual cancer risk observed. Dr. Aka said that genome contains genes and the similarity of genes in different persons is 99%. He indicated that variation is a change in one base sequence and SNPs are the most common type of variation which transforms the sequence of genes into amino acids. Dr. Aka further said that smoking is susceptible to lung cancer prior to the inhalation of carcinogen, noting that a person with snip has a higher chance of getting cancer than a person without snip. Dr. Aka indicated that the preventive modes from genetical susceptibility to cancer are:
- Avoidance of the consumption of alcohol and tobacco
- Avoidance of carcinogen at work and exposure to pollution.
- Protect yourself from excessive sunlight
- Limit fats and calories in your diet.
- Consume more fruits and vegetables.
The seminar was closed with a question and answer session. The moderator of the seminar was Professor N.F Awasom.
Source: Foroyaa Newspaper Burning Issue
Issue No.009/2007, 22-23 January, 2007
|
A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
|
Topic Locked
