[FRIAM] The Problem with the Mutation-Centric View of Cancer

[Marcus Daniels]

Wouldn't chemotherapy also reset the the micro-environments?  Has chemotherapy ever been given to animals before they have cancer to see if it has a preventative function?

Could one imagine healthy people above a certain age (esp. the Elysium 1%) getting stem cell transplantation every few years coupled to chemotherapy (or drugs that induce apoptosis)?


Marcus

________________________________
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of ┣glen┫ <gepropella at gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, September 4, 2017 1:40:13 PM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: [FRIAM] The Problem with the Mutation-Centric View of Cancer


http://nautil.us/blog/the-problem-with-the-mutation_centric-view-of-cancer

> How should we study the origins of cancer?
>
> My lab has been researching the origins of cancers for the last 15 to 17 years. We’re trying to understand cancer from an evolutionary viewpoint, understanding how it evolves. A lot of people think about cancer from an evolutionary viewpoint. But what sets us apart is that we’ve really come to understand cancer by the context these cells find themselves in.
>
> What’s an example of such a context?
>
> While other people will think about aging as the time for mutations to cause advantageous events [for cancer] in cells, we see aging as a very different process. It’s not about the time you get mutations—you get many mutations when you’re young. It’s the tissue environment for the cells that changes dramatically as we age. Those new tissue environments basically stimulate the evolution. So the evolution isn’t a process that’s limited by the mutation so much as a process that is limited by micro-environment changes.


--
␦glen?

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