A recent series of startling discoveries led in last by Professor of Cellular and Developmental Biology Raymond L. Erikson is bringing scientists to the threshold of understanding and possibly controlling one of today's most feared and least understood diseases--cancer.

But while the research is advancing at an unprecedentedly rapid pace, cancer biologists remain divided over its potential to actually provide a cure to cancer. Moreover, competition among researchers has led scientists to withhold information, plaguing the research and slowing down the progress, scientists say.

No one denies, however, that the level of excitement among cancer researchers has reached a new high as scientists come closer to unlocking the mystery of how cancer cells are born. In particular, the interest is aroused by a new theory suggesting that the seeds of cancer are present in virtually all healthy cells.

Frikson recently startled the scientific community by showing that a specific type of abnormal gene--labelled an oncagene (from the Greek word ongus meaning "excessive growth")--corrupts the healthy cell by creating irregular proteins. These proteins then somehow transform the normal cell to a cancer cell.

The discovery has triggered an onslaught of further research focusing primarily on exactly how oncagenes form, how they create abnormal proteins and how these products cause malignancy.

More important, an understanding of how cancer cells form will hopefully lead to a method of stifling the process, scientists say.

"There are several ways to get cancer, but most of what we know of as cancer will be explained in oncagene products," Erikson says. "If we know the pathways we can then think of ways to intervene in the cell growth. Right now, I'm quite optimistic," he adds.

Other top rescarchers, however, are not as optimistic. While most heartily support the continuation of oncagene research, some suggest that the results may not be as fruitful or promising as they may now appear.

"It's hard to see a rational therapy based on oncagene research right now," says Tony Hunter of the Salk Cancer Research Institute in California. "If you're interested in curing cancer, working with oncagenes is a long road and many years away," he adds.

"Even if we find out how it works, we might see that there is nothing we can do about it A real understanding is still a long way away," agrees Larry Rohrschncider of the Hunter Cancer Research in Seattle.

The pessimism, however, is countered by others who explain that somewhere on the path to a full understanding of oncagenes, ideas for treatments or prevention may crop up.

"It's exactly the right direction," says Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Lewis C. Cantley, adding, "Critics say no treatment may ever come out of it, but a good analysis is polio. Much money was spent on the design of a better iron lung machine, but not on the idea of using a serum. With cancer, much less has been spent on clinical treatment, but we may get the breakthrough from a different line of a research."

Cancer is a condition in which cells multiply without discipline and invade adjoining tissues. Recent research has determined that the oncagenes which are carried in a virus are not really native genes of the virus, but instead are normal genes of animal cells that somehow have been stolen from animal tissues and then incorporated in the virus. It is theorized that in normal cells, these genes have very important developmental functions such as causing cells to multiply when necessary.

That same gene, when incorporated in a virus, can apparently rapidly generate the wild and aberrent growth known as cancer.

In natural circumstances, the initial distortion of cell life that leads to cancer could be caused by a random mutation, man-made chemicals, or any number of still unsuspected causes.