Why do the majority of people never get cancer?

http://www.physorg.com/news151840958.html

A highly productive scientific career of over 60 years might lead you to reflect on longevity. Maybe that is what George Klein to ask a very interesting question.

via Physorg

In an article in PNAS, Klein outline five mechanisms that seem to offer protection against cancer (immunological mechanisms, genetic factors like DNA repair, epigenetic factors regulating gene expression, intra and intercellular cell-death mechanisms). He then outlines how research has generally been far more focused on susceptibilities but that there could be just as much to be learnt from the study of cancer resistance. -- Klein, George. “Toward a genetics of cancer resistance.” PNAS, January 20, 2009, vol. 106, no. 3, 859-863. -- George Klein is also the author of an excellent science memoir The Atheist in the Holy City. Good for a little light reading.