A new report sheds light on a better and simpler way to understand cancer. It's just to bad most scientists are lost in a world of things like genes, which are rarely the underlying cause of cancer (instead, what "turned on" or damaged the gene is).
QUOTE: "When cells reach the point where they divide constantly, instead of only when needed, they are cancer cells."
Instead, multicellular organisms use a seemingly inefficient process to replace lost cells, Pepper said. An organ such as the skin calls upon skin-specific stem cells to produce intermediate cells that in turn produce skin cells.
Although great at their job, the new skin cells are evolutionary dead ends. The cells cannot reproduce.
Losing the ability to reproduce was part of the evolutionary path single-celled organisms had to take to become multicellular, Pepper said.
What was in it for the single cells?
"Probably they got to be part of something more powerful," Pepper said. "Something that was hard to eat and good at eating other things..."
"Organisms are just a bunch of cells," he said.
"If you understand the conditions under which they cooperate, you can understand the conditions under which cooperation breaks down. Cancer is a breakdown of cooperation..." UNQUOTE.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071219130310.htm |
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