Down syndrome fights cancer!

Tom over at Random Thinking posted this article found at WebMD. It talks about a gene called Ets2 that seems to help reduce the cancer rates in people with Down syndrome. Because this gene is located on the 21st chromosome, which people with Down syndrome have 3, they have extra Ets2 which tips the balance and turns it into a cancer fighter. This could lead to drugs to fight cancer in the future. As one researcher said, if Down syndrome did not exist there would have been no point to doing the over-expression research on Ets2 and an exciting potential treatment would have been missed. And we will all owe a debt to people with Down syndrome if a drug is developed from this research. How's that for cool?!