Tasmanian devils 'adapting to coexist with cancer'

Re:Tasmanian devils 'adapting to coexist with cancer' by DoreenMichele on Saturday March 30, 2019 @02:40PM (#19530990)

To give a different perspective, this is how genetic disorders in humans develop. Sickle cell is protective against malaria. Cystic fibrosis is protective against one or two infections that swept through Europe repeatedly, which is why it is a predominantly Caucasian condition and is much less common in other ethnicities.

This article is kind of celebrating the birth of a new genetic disorder as a form of survival.

I actually find that aspect of it moderately disturbing.

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Re:Tasmanian devils 'adapting to coexist with cancer' by FreeFull on Saturday March 30, 2019 @03:37PM (#19531319)

The interesting thing about sickle cell anaemia is that you get it if both copies of the gene are abnormal, you get the disease, but if just one of them is abnormal you don't get the disease but still get the resistance to malaria.

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Re:Tasmanian devils 'adapting to coexist with cancer' by DoreenMichele on Saturday March 30, 2019 @03:49PM (#19531394)

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is also homozygous recessive.

Presumably, both disorders developed for the same reason: One copy of the gene is protective, but not crippling. Two copies are crippling.

So those with one copy had higher survival rates when epidemics of certain diseases hit. This meant that more of their children survived, even though some of their children were born with terrible impairment and worse survival rates.

People with CF tend to not reproduce. In fact, 97 percent of males with CF lack a vas deferens, making them effectively sterile. It's mostly the carriers who create new people with CF. Some of them had no idea they were carriers until they had a child with CF.

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Re:Tasmanian devils 'adapting to coexist with cancer' by Nasrudith on Saturday March 30, 2019 @10:00PM (#19533249)

That is the thing - there is pretty much always a 'bad' state that is an improvement over a worse one. Losing a hand isn't good but it beats a death by sepsis.

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