Q&A: Nearly Every Single Human Gene Can Be Linked to Cancer

The Scientist spoke with University of Liverpool aging and longevity researcher João Pedro de Magalhães about how human biases can influence scientific priorities and outcomes in genetics.

Written byDan Robitzski

| 6 min read

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ABOVE: João Pedro de Magalhães
ALAN BANNISTER

The pink ribbons of the month of October are a visual reminder of how much primacy US society places on cancer research. Indeed, the National Cancer Institute’s 2021 budget is $6.56 billion budget out of the $42.9 billion allocated to the entirety of the National Institutes of Health—and cancer’s hefty research funding carries over into scientific publications. A literature analysis of the journal database PubMed published Wednesday (October 27) in Trends in Genetics reveals that the vast majority of human genes have been linked to cancer in some way. The database contains papers on 17,371 different human genes, according to the study, 87.7 percent of which mention cancer. Meanwhile, cancer studies are exceedingly common throughout the database, and there are several times more papers that focus on cancer than on other severe medical conditions such as strokes.

The Scientist spoke with João Pedro de ...

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Meet the Author

Dan Robitzski
Dan is an award-winning journalist based in Los Angeles who joined The Scientist as a reporter and editor in 2021. Ironically, Dan’s undergraduate degree and brief career in neuroscience inspired him to write about research rather than conduct it, culminating in him earning a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University in 2017. In 2018, an Undark feature Dan and colleagues began at NYU on a questionable drug approval decision at the FDA won first place in the student category of the Association of Health Care Journalists' Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism. Now, Dan writes and edits stories on all aspects of the life sciences for the online news desk, and he oversees the “The Literature” and “Modus Operandi” sections of the monthly TS Digest and quarterly print magazine. Read more of his work at danrobitzski.com.
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