April 21, 2011  Why Scientific Ignorance Can Kill You  Modern
medicine is getting more complex than ever (image courtesy of
flickr user - POD -)  While working on this story from
Smithsonian‘s May issue about oncologist Brian Druker and his
discovery 10 years ago of a breakthrough drug for chronic
myeloid leukemia, I was struck by the following passage:  Over
the pub’s blaring music Mayfield said of his BCR-ABL gene, “I
had the G250E mutation—have the G250E mutation—which is why I
became resistant to Gleevec.”  His remark sounded like something
out of a time machine programmed to years or decades from now,
when people will nonchalantly talk about their deadly genetic
mutations and the drugs that stymie them. It’s an image Druker
often conjures. “In the not-too-distant future,” he wrote when
accepting the Lasker-DeBakey Award, “clinicians will be able to
thoroughly analyze individuals’ tumors for molecular defects and
match each person with specific, effective therapies that will
yield a durable response with