Medicine: Heredity & Cancer

The title of the address at the University of Virginia had a ring of scientific heresy: "Heritance of Acquired Characteristics." Yet the speaker was an eminent researcher. Dr. Frank L. Horsfall Jr., director of Manhattan's Sloan-Kettering Institute. What he did, pulling together recent research from a number of laboratories, was to show that:

> Heredity can, at least in the somewhat limited field of bacteria, be changed and even directed.

> Control of heredity in cells could be a key tool in preventing cancer.

Charles Darwin propounded the doctrine that evolution occurs by natural selection, in which some individuals happen, by chance combination...

Want the full story?

Subscribe Now

Subscribe
Subscribe

Learn more about the benefits of being a TIME subscriber

If you are already a subscriber sign up — registration is free!