The genes in the nucleus of our cells have long been described as the “book of life,” but perhaps “the cookbook of life” would be more precise. Our genetic code contains the instructions your cells use to produce all the signaling factors, microscopic machines, and barriers that comprise our bodies and keep us alive and healthy. So you can imagine what can happen to a cell when a censor tears pages out of that book or crosses out offending words, or when a vandal scrawls text midsentence at the page break to transform a line into gutter humor. That’s what mutations (and epimutations) are: they delete or distort the instructions our cells need to make the stuff of life.

Because each mutation happens to a single cell in isolation, many mutations are harmless, because they hit a gene for some protein that the cell type where they occur doesn’t use — like the gene for a liver enzyme in a lung air sac cell. Others are mild and barely affect function. And even when a mutation severely interferes with a cell’s ability to do something important, the effect is often limited simply because it is limited to one cell out of millions or billions in a tissue that can pick up the slack.

But there are particular kinds of mutations that really can ruin a life. Fixing these mutations is impossible with the biotechnology of today and our near tomorrow — but we can prevent them from doing harm by going one link higher up in the chain and preventing the mutant cells themselves from doing harm. Support OncoSENS, and defang the mutant horde!