Health Care

DNA Polymerase Beta
source: Wikimedia Commons

One protein could hinder treatment for over 60,000 African American cancer patients each year.

The death rate for African Americans for all cancers is consistently higher than other cancer patients—18 percent higher for women and 35 percent for men. Although many factors contribute to this disparity, recent results from a lab directed by Joann Sweasy at Yale University indicate that researchers should look closely at a protein called DNA polymerase beta.

Polymerase beta is a naturally occurring enzyme in all humans, but Sweasy’s research indicates that populations originating from Africa may have a different version. “It’s important in terms of the history of human beings and in addressing health disparity questions,” says Sweasy.

Even if you do not smoke and wear suntan lotion, your body’s basic operations, merely processing sugars required for life, can create errors in your genetic code—10 to 20,000 per cell per day. If the errors occur in the wrong place, a normal cell can become a cancer cell and start rapidly producing others like itself. Polymerase beta works as a DNA repairman, finding and correcting these errors.
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