Group Discussion 301 



My final comment is that I regard it as singularly unfortunate that 

 so much of the research on cancer is conducted essentially without 

 reference to the phenomena of ageing, of which I think it is a part. 

 I believe that not only would a study of ageing benefit from more 

 knowledge of what is going on in older animals, but the whole field 

 of investigation of cancer might benefit equally, and perhaps far 

 more. This for the simple reason that to a very considerable degree, 

 at the moment, cancer experiments are conducted by putting trans- 

 plantable tumours into young, often rapidly growing animals, and 

 then seeing what could be done in the way of chemotherapy in these 

 conditions — a thing which does not approximate very closely to 

 what happens in the average human patient. Prof. Miihlbock's 

 laboratory is a shining example of an institute where this isolation 

 of cancer research from ageing research does not occur, but I hope 

 it will not long continue to be one of the very few shining examples. 



V 



