Cancer Family: The Search for the Cause of Hereditary Colorectal Cancer

It is 1946, and a young man stares out his third-story apartment window. He has returned from the war with metastatic cancer and assumes he will die, leaving his wife and infant daughter behind. Instead, he lives another twenty-four years, raising a family of four children, before he succumbs to a second colon cancer. His son, the author, recognizes that there is a hereditary cancer syndrome in the family and resolves to solve the problem as a medical researcher. Eventually, hereditary colorectal cancer is recognized as a medical entity, and multiple genes responsible for this hereditary condition are isolated. However, the mutation responsible in the author's family escaped detection. In 2001, his laboratory identifies the mutation responsible for the problem and develops a specific test for the family. This permits the mutation carriers to obtain life-saving care, altering the natural history of the disease for his family and others.