You or someone that you know may be affected by cancer or the "enemy within." It is often asked what causes cancer and how does cancer progress. Over the last two decades, there have been great advances in our understanding of cancer's causes and progression, and in particular, the genes that affect cancer development. These achievements have led to better tools to detect and treat cancers.

Cancer is the result of seemingly normal cells that acquire molecular changes allowing the cancer cells to multiply wildly with complete disregard for normal cues. Cancer cells that escape and spread to other parts of the body eventually beat down the body and cause death. What are the molecular changes that contribute to cancer development?

Perhaps the best analogies for cancer genes and tumor suppressor genes are car accelerators and brakes (See Figure). Normal cells possess accelerators, genes that instruct cells to multiply, and brakes or genes that keep normal cells from multiplying excessively. The normal accelerators are termed proto-oncogenes (precursors of oncogenes or cancer genes), which normally regulates cells as they multiply during growth of a fetus or to replace cells that are lost in adults. The brakes or tumor suppressor genes provide a means to control the multiplication of the cells so that they conform to the normal architecture of tissues and organs. The coordination both accelerators and brakes is extremely important for the cells to navigate through the growth and development of a child or for the repair of damaged tissues. If the brakes are lost and/or the accelerators are stuck on the floor-board, then the cells would go out of control and may result in abnormal multiplication of the cells or tumor development.

In this website, we chose to focus on the MYC cancer gene or accelerator that contributes to more than 70,000 cancer deaths annually in the US. The normal MYC gene is important for embryonic development, such that its complete absence in the mouse causes death of embryos. When the MYC accelerator is stuck, the MYC gene is ON in cells at times when it is not supposed to be ON. Normal cells respond to the stuck accelerator by hitting hard on certain types of brakes or tumor suppressor genes. The result is frequently a burned-out engine or cell suicide termed "apoptosis." However, if the same cell that contains a stuck accelerator is also one that had a defective brake mechanism (loss of a tumor suppressor gene), the cell would not undergo suicide but rather multiply erratically. The result is a tumor that could well progress and spread to other parts of the body.

The MYC cancer gene contains instructions for the production of the c-Myc protein. The c-Myc protein is now known as a transcription factor or a regulator of other genes. It is a protein that binds DNA at specific sites and instructs genes whether or not they should be transcribed into messages for cells to make additional or other new proteins. This website is designed for interested scientists to find information regarding the role of MYC in human cancers and information about the genes that are regulated by the c-Myc protein.

For additional information about cancers and cancer genes, the reader can use the available links on this site to the National Cancer Institute, The American Cancer Society, The American Society of Hematology or The American Association for Cancer Research.