Reflection (Steve)

This project has also taught me a lot about the practical applications of evolution. Until this class and mainly this project I never thought about evolution being relevant to things such as disease today. Through the papers I also learned a lot about the p53 gene and cancer in general. I was completely unaware of the p53 gene family before reading these papers. Similar to the other members of my group I did not know that there was such a complex family of genes that regulated cell apotosis. I thought that there were simply environmental triggers that caused a certain cell to begin the process of cell death. Another thing that was surprising to me was how genetically predisposed some can be to cancer. I always knew that there was some hereditary effect, but I thought that for the most part the majority of cancer cases were due to mutations caused mainly by genetic error or environmental influences. This project has been enlightening in many ways and has been a worthwhile experience.