Now, we all know the story of Lincoln's assassination by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865 (Good Friday). John Sotos, "Dr Zebra" is a cardiologist with special interest into the 16th president of the USA. He hypothesised that Lincoln suffered from a genetic defect resulting in cancer was the subject of The National Geographic's documentary "Lincoln's Secret Killer". He sourced some articles which were kept as mementos subsequent to his assassination which may have DNA. From whatever DNA that could have been salvaged, they sought to determine whether he had a MEN 2B (Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia Type II) or Marfan syndrome.
They ruled out Marfan syndrome, as although he had abnormally long appendages, he did not seem to have ophthalmic or cardiac deficiencies which are associated with defects in the FBN-1 gene.
Unfortunately, due to the passage of time, the samples obtained were either unusable as the DNA was greatly degraded or the one sample (which questionable reliability) which was amplified actually didn't show a defect in the MEN2B gene.
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| Abraham Lincoln's tall frame 6' 4" with his disproportionately long arms and legs |
Here are links where you can learn more about the documentary and facts about the diseases in question:
NGC: Lincoln's Secret Killer Documentary
NGC and Cleveland Clinic
Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia type-2
About Marfan Syndrome
Read more about John Sotos here
I think it's quite interesting that at this day and age we can link science with history to try to create a clearer picture of what has already occurred. I was also excited to see applications to a few things we learnt in Medical School such as the PCR testing and the usage of genetic markers to determine disease causation and presence.
1 book I highly recommend (a novel) Marker by Robin Cook who is an excellent medical thriller writer explores some of the implications of genetic testing. You can read more about it here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66465.Marker
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