My disputation in evolutionary cancer research 01-02

Recently I have nothing new to write but to copy two of my earlier posts from my Chinese blog site to here, as I hadn't been able to get on blogger for a long time.

I hope the field of evolutionary cancer research to thrive and to render real breakthroughs, while I may have a lot of different opinions from others'. I don't like to have disputation but this is the way we keep theories rectified in any field.

There is always the philosophic argument whether the interior or the exterior factors determine. At this moment I seem to emphasize the interior factors while my colleagues do otherwise. However we are heading for the same target, hopefully, only via differentiated ways.


01 (2012-11-15)

Just saw a website, Inside Cancer, with lessons on various aspects of cancer, where there is one on Evolution and Cancer. It's said that one of the Common Misconceptions is that "Students may recognize that cancer involves uncontrolled cell division, but they rarely understand that cancer cells have other characteristics that affect their reproduction and survival. Students may think that in the future scientists will discover a single cause for all types of cancer."

I do not like to dispute but I have to say something on this issue. Although the life history of cancer cells is co-determined by multiple factors while they may be different as per different types of cancer, the uncontrolled cell division is still the most basic feature of cancer cells and should be one of the most concentrated issue. There is no mistake to understand 1+1=2 before exploring what you get by adding an apple with an orange.

02 (2012-11-19)

A common issue that many evol-cancer researchers are focusing on is the effect of micro-environment on cells when talking about competition among somatic cells and their strategies, but I don't think it's the most essential one to be emphasized.

An intuitive argument is, if a bunch/lineage of somatic cells have adapted to stable environments, how come they could quickly switch to another set of strategies that fit the new fluctuating environment? It's hard to accept such a scenario UNLESS this plasticity (or capability of switching strategies) itself is also an outcome of evolution. As a result, the focus should be what have made that plasticity possible, (only) based on which we can talk about how cell strategies are manipulated by the micro-environment.

It's like a classical disputation between the niche theory and the neutral theory in community ecology. I won't talk too much on it because the disputation may not have finished yet. The point is that under niche theory you know definitely some environmental factors are making influence but nothing helps you find what they are and how they function. Now the same difficulty is seen here in evol-cancer research.

Whether it's my prejudice or not, I would prefer to focus on internal causes before any external causes are considered.