At the National Institutes of Health, which currently spends about $60 million on breast-cancer genetics research and will be in charge of about a third of the new money, scientists said they were not certain which projects would get the new funds. The NIH will collaborate with Department of Defense scientists on the remainder, according to officials.
``This step represents a major increase in breast-cancer genetic research,'' Clinton said last weekend. ``It will ensure the development of this promising new research and bring us that much closer to a cure.''
184,000 NEW CASES A YEAR
The government estimates that breast cancer will cause some 44,000 deaths this year. About 184,000 new cases of breast cancer are identified each year, according to the National Cancer Institute, and fighting the disease is a popular cause with women voters.
The focus on genetics follows the discovery over the past two years of two genes that cause breast cancer when they are altered. Although these genes are implicated in a relatively small number of all breast cancers, scientists believe they may point the way to other cancer-causing genes, or be implicated with others in causing other cancers.
``All cancers involve mutations in tumor-suppressor genes which normally keep a cell under control and increase the expression of oncogenes,'' genes that can make cells cancerous, Skolnick said.
Cells multiply under direction from these genes: Normally, genes that encourage cells to multiply and those that stop them are in balance, so that the number of cells produced is exactly what the body needs.
Cancer sets in when this balance is destroyed: The genes that trigger cell production go out of control and begin producing huge numbers of cells, forming deadly masses and sometimes spreading to other parts of the body.
