The healthy P-53 gene can then begin to trigger the self-destruction program for the cancer cell.

This is a first step in showing that we can restore a normal, functioning gene in a cancer cell, a gene that normally causes that cell to be cancerous when it's defective.

...we're a people who pollute the very air we breathe. And our rivers. We're destroying the great lakes; Erie is already gone, and now we've begun on the oceans. We filled our atmosphere with radioactive fallout that put poison into our children's bones, and we knew it. We've made bombs that can wipe out humanity in minutes, and they are aimed and ready to fire. We ended polio, and then the United States Army bred new strains of germs that can cause fatal, incurable disease. We had a chance to do justice to our Negroes, and when they asked it, we refused. In Asia we burned people alive, we really did. We allow children to grow up malnourished in the United States. We allow people to make money by using our television channels to pursued our own children to smoke, knowing what it is going to do to them. This is a time when it becomes harder and harder to continue telling yourself that we are still good people. We hate each other. And we're used to it.

In time, targeted gene therapy may help improve the outlook for many types of cancer. While we have a long way to go, I am increasingly optimistic about new gene therapy approaches to earlier treatment and, ultimately, to a strategy that may help prevent cancer development.

Ironically, the very substances that people become dependent on to evade their own self destruction are the catalysts of that process.

Thou hast but enraged, not insulted me, sir; but for that I ask thee not to beware of Starbuck; thou wouldst but laugh; but let Ahab beware of Ahab; beware of thyself, old man.