Cancer drugs affect mouse genomes for generations DNA mutations
continue to accumulate in offspring of treated mice. The work
emphasizes the importance of looking at the effects of
chemotherapy not only on recipients, but also on their
descendants. But Yuri Dubrova, a geneticist at the University of
Leicester, UK, who led the study, cautions against extrapolating
the results of this study to humans. Most adults treated for
cancer are either too old to have children or become sterile
from the treatment. "So we're talking about one group only:
childhood cancer survivors," says Dubrova. One recent study
found no significant impact of radiation or chemotherapy on the
rate of birth defects in 4,699 children of childhood cancer
survivors2. Furthermore, children who are treated for cancer
will not have children of their own for years or decades
afterwards. Mice only live about two years, and the ones in
Dubrova's study reproduced a few months after their exposure to
the drugs. "I would be very careful in interpretin