If you want a glimpse into the future of medicine, look at Mary
Sullivan. The 63-year-old retiree from Corning lives anxiously
with lung cancer, a disease that causes more deaths each year
than breast, prostate and colon cancer combined. Progress in
treatment has been slow, but there are encouraging signs. Her
doctors at Roswell Park Cancer Institute compared her tumor
cells with her healthy cells in search of a gene mutation that
is found in about 15 percent of patients in the United States
and that can cause uncontrolled cell growth. Knowing that she
carried the mutation, doctors put her on the drug Tarceva, which
targets the mutation with fewer side effects than standard
systemwide chemotherapy. “The drug is working. I’m still here
and am content with that,” said Sullivan, who was diagnosed with
advanced disease in the fall of 2010. The importance of
Sullivan’s story is that it’s now believed that cancers develop
from mutations in our genes. Some mutations are inherited from
parents, but most are acquired