Are you a smoker who wants to find out the genetic probability of developing lung cancer?

That’s not the question included in the e-mail that was sent out top students on the N.C. State listserv about a smoking study, but it is the one Duke University Medical Center researchers performing the study are trying to answer.

“The project is designed to try to determine whether a communicated risk for lung cancer affects the willingness and smoking status of college students,” Michael Kelley, co-investigator for the study and an associate professor of medicine at Duke University, said.

Those who participate in the study will be informed of genetic testing, a procedure that uses a person’s DNA to determine the likelihood of inherited diseases, according to Isaac Lipkus, principal investigator for the study and professor of psychiatry at Duke.

He said researchers will discuss genetic testing for lung cancer with smokers and, after they’ve read provided information, will ask them if they want to undergo genetic testing for lung cancer.

The test collects DNA from the inside of participants’ mouths through a mouthwash sample.

“We’ll use that to extract DNA from the cells,” Lipkus said.

The gene they’re looking for is GSTM1, a glutathione S-transferase gene that Kelley said “is commonly deleted in some people. In the caucasian population, the frequency of both copies of the gene being deleted is about half.”

Some data, he said, suggests that when both copies of a gene — one copy from a person’s mother, one from a person’s father — are deleted, “you might have a slightly higher risk of developing lung cancer.”

That’s because studies have shown the GSTM1, which is one gene in “a whole family of genes,” could make proteins that neutralize toxins released by tobacco smoke.

“When you inhale tobacco smoke, your body starts to metabolize those chemicals,” Kelley said. “As it does so, at least one of those reactive chemicals is deactivated by the protein product of the GSTM1 gene.”

When it has been deleted, these carcinogens pass through — still active.

“What’s in each of those families, and there are still others, they are arranged in tandem array so that there is one gene and then the next gene and the next gene,” Kelly said. “When you delete one of them, what it does it you don’t make that protein. The thought is that you increase the risk of cancer by having more of the active forms of the carcinogens in your body.”

GSTM1 isn’t like the gene that indicates the risk a woman with a family history of breast cancer might develop the cancer, Kelley said.

“That’s not this type of gene,” he said. “It has high prevalence and low risk.”

High prevalence, he said, means GSTM1 is common in a population, and low risk means its absence does not significantly raise smokers’ risk of developing lung cancer.

“For example, if a normal risk is one — the normal population risk is one — this might increase your risk by as little as 10 percent, or not even that much,” Kelley said. “On average, a smoker might have a 10 percent lifetime risk for getting cancer, but if you have loss of this gene, then you might have an 11 percent risk.

“It’s not a huge change in risk,” he said.

And it’s not the only gene that can be used to detect the probability of lung cancer.

“It’s one of the many, many, many, many genes that could predict lung cancer,” Lipkus said.

The researchers, who started recruiting 18- to 21-year old smokers about nine days ago, aren’t only looking at scientific aspects, like genes, of this study. Lipkus said he is also hoping to get a psychological perspective about those participating.

“We want to find out how many college smokers want to get tested for this gene, how they react to that information, do they understand it, the reason why they want to get tested and why they wouldn’t want to get tested,” he said.

Mary Hayes, a junior in accounting, said although she thinks getting genetically tested for the gene “isn’t a bad idea,” she wouldn’t participate in the study.

“In my family history, I’ve never had any problems with lung cancer,” she said. “I wouldn’t expect to have that 1 percent increase.”

She said members of her family have smoked regularly before, although they — like her — have quit recently.

“I smoked up until last year, but I stopped,” she said.