4 ms·

Does this mean, if that portion of our genome could be removed then cancer would not be possible?

• majkinetor 13y ago
  I guess not. I think that point is that cancer is very hard to cure because its cells revert to the basic software of life, the ancient one, which made everything we know today and without which life is not possible, hence it can't be removed. So cancer is another form of life where different species of single cellular life evolve in its microenvironment. I say different species because most cells forming cancer have different genetic characteristics because of extensive aneuplody. The authors argue, tho, that Warburg effect (reliance on glucose for energy instead oxygen) is consequence of reverting to ancient genome. I wouldn't put it that way - I bet that cancer cells rediscover ancient genome rather then revert to it, because, we know that cancer cells do not behave uniformly and behavior and physical characteristics change even from layer to layer inside same tumor. I would expect that given such scenario the only way to fight cancer is physically removing them. Most of the things we know about cancer are in line with this - immunotherapy, strengthening the immune system to recognize and physically destroy cancer cells is currently most promising strategy and other things that are not compatible with life development make a difference - caloric restriction for instance or folate removal.