could hardly have been more sweeping damage to the gene dr croce told the associated press was probably the starting point of the most common human malignancies including lung esophagus and colon cancerdr croce was careful to point out in his scientific papers that carcinogens in cigarette smoke could in fact be the agents that damaged the fhit gene and there is no evidence that he publicly defended the tobacco industry none of the work reflected in these papers suggested stated or implied that cancer was caused by an inherited genetic condition dr croce said in his statement to the timesbut for the industry it wouldnt have mattered said william farone once a scientist for the tobacco industry who has repeatedly testified against it he knows damn well what use of the genetic information there would be to someone in the tobacco industry dr farone said and the litigation archive shows that the scientific advisory board and dr croces name were repeatedly invoked to give credibility to the tobacco companies expert witnessesdr croce said he had been unaware at the time that his name was used to lend credibility to any assertion that smoking did not cause cancer or that the causality had not been proved any such use of his name his statement said was false and fraudulentamong dr croces peers there was skepticism of dr croces broad claims for the fhit gene and today some scientists say it seems more a marker of malignancy than the rosetta stone of cancer research as some news reports called it at the timeduring the interview dr croce continued to promote the fhit research but conceded that its not fashionable anymoredr croce chairman of the department of cancer biology and genetics at ohio state has since moved on to one of the hottest areas of genomics and cancer research he has looked beyond the small fraction of human dna that actually encodes for proteins less than 2 percent to the rest of the dna once all but ignored as contributing little to the workings of a cellscientists came to realize that this dna could make short molecules that influence how genes and therefore living cells operate if genes are the notes on a keyboard those molecules act as volume controls regulators of gene expressionsome of those short molecules are called micrornas dr croces work has linked various cancers to a deficiency or overabundance of certain micrornas those effects he asserted in a 2009 article contribute to most if not all human malignancies micrornas he posited could lead to entirely new cancer therapiesonce again the scope of dr croces claims has left colleagues wary while few researchers dispute the role of microrna as a cancer marker there is skepticism that the case has been made for its therapeutic potentialyoull find scientists who say its hype said graham brock a cancer researcher who has studied the molecules while dr croce is not the only scientist who may be overselling the findings he added hes