Fatal inheritance: how a family misfortune revealed a deadly medical mystery.

Text: Lawrence Ingrassia   Published: 2024

Lawrence Ingrassia lost his mother, two sisters, brother and nephew to cancer - different cancers developing at different points throughout their lives. And while this variety of cancers and degree of loss are highly unusual, he and his family members are not the only ones to wonder whether their heartbreak is the result of unbelievably bad luck or if there may be another explanation.

Through meticulous research and riveting storytelling, Ingrassia takes us from the 1960s - when Dr Frederick Pei Li and Dr Joseph Fraumeni Jr first met, not yet knowing that they would help make a groundbreaking discovery that would affect cancer patients for decades to come - to the present day, as Ingrassia and countless others continue to unpack and build upon Li and Fraumeni’s initial discoveries and to understand what they mean for their families.

In the face of seemingly unbearable loss, Ingrassia holds on to hope. He urges us to ‘fight like Charlie,’ his nephew who battled cancer his entire life, starting with a rare tumour in his cheek at the age of two, and to look toward the future, as gene sequencing, screening protocols, CRISPR gene editing and other developing technologies may continue to extend life spans and perhaps one day, even offer cures.