Discovery of bcl-2
Landmark research by David L. Vaux and colleagues described the anti-apoptotic and tumorigenic (tumor-causing) role of the human cancer gene bcl-2. Researchers had been hot in the track of oncogenes, and now more and more of the pieces were falling into place. However, although bcl-2 was the first component of the cell death mechanism to be cloned in any organism, identification of other components of the vertebrate mechanism had to await the linking of apoptosis with the mechanism for programmed cell death in the worm.
Read more about this topic: History And Highlights In Apoptosis Research
Famous quotes containing the words discovery of and/or discovery:
“Next to the striking of fire and the discovery of the wheel, the greatest triumph of what we call civilization was the domestication of the human male.”
—Max Lerner (b. 1902)
“I have known no experience more distressing than the discovery that Negroes didn’t love me. Unutterable loneliness claimed me. I felt without roots, like a man without a country ...”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 1, ch. 10 (1962)