quintessential disease

09:54 Mar 26, 2014 

is here used exactly in its original meaning the "fifth distillate" i.e. "the core of the core" of a concept.

The most essential function of genes (the core function, THE most central characteristic of "being a gene") is to transmit "cell building instructions" to the next generation of cells. And cancer happens when this "mostest core function" (as the Duchess of Pork would have it) of genes is not working properly, thus cancer is the 'quintessential' disease (malfunction) of genes.

Sorry that it's not yet available all pre-packaged on Google.

17:31 Mar 25, 2014 

la quintessence des maladies génétiques ??

16:17 Mar 25, 2014 

le plus grand des maux ???
la plus grave des maladies ???

16:08 Mar 25, 2014 

"par excellence" could be right, although rather optimistic

13:14 Mar 25, 2014 

thanks for your reply tony. the document is an article:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/...

13:07 Mar 25, 2014 

It is questionable whether 'quintessential' was really the best choice of term in the source text, since to me at least its intended meaning is far from clear.

Common translation such as 'par excellence' or 'parfait' ring strangely oddly when describing a disease like cancer, and one might ask quite what the original writer had in mind?
My initial reading was that they meant "...is a classic example of a disease of the genes..." — 'exemple type', perhaps?
But I can see there might be other nuances that could come into play here, each of which might require different treament in translation.
I wonder if you can glean any additional clues from the rest of your document?