Why do some people get cancer and others not? Nobel Prize-winning work by Lee Hartwell has revealed a suite of genes that control cell growth and division to help understand why when two people have the same defective cancer gene, one succumbs at age 40 and the other at age 55. Humans have about 30,000 genes, and although two people may share the same mutant cancer gene, they differ at thousands of other genes.  It is this variation that must be evaluated and understood. Hartwell examines how genetic variation in the human population can influence the cancer process. With an elegance and simplicity that has always marked Hartwells style, Nobel laureate Lee Hartwell delivers an insightful and thought-provoking analysis of this cutting edge question in biology. This program is made possible by the Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington. From the Series:Genetics and Molecular Biotechnology: Departmental Seminar