Looking at Cancer Through an Evolutionary Lens

Extract

Over the centuries, physicians have conceptualized cancer in many ways. Hippocrates viewed it as a malfunction of black bile. In India it was treated as an imbalance of Ayurvedic principles of dosha. Modern medicine has viewed cancer in terms of genetic mutations. Now some researchers are saying we should step back and view cancer through the lens of evolution and ecology to better understand how tumors form and spread.

Doing so, they say, is consistent with the current genomic view but adds dimension. Conceptualizing cancer cells as a dynamic, interacting population provides new avenues for understanding and controlling the disease.

“[Evolutionary theory] is consistent with the way we understand cancer; it just describes the dynamics of that process, which people haven't been paying that much attention to,” said Carlos Maley, Ph.D. , assistant professor of molecular and cellular oncology at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia. Maley has applied evolutionary principles to understanding how cells evolve from the precancerous Barrett esophagus to full-fledged esophageal carcinoma. He is a vocal proponent of incorporating evolutionary principles into cancer research.