A 2000 study called The Hallmarks of Cancer is the most-referenced paper in the journal Cell, one of the most influential journals in the world. Turns out that paper might be wrong.
And that might partly explain why cancer death rates are falling slowly.
The theory, which is illustrated in the video above, basically says that sometimes cells lose their ability to regulate growth and go crazy, creating cancer tumours. The New York Times reports that at the recent annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Orlando, Florida, scientists had a whole lot of other theories up their sleeves.
One states that microbes, which include tiny creatures like bacteria and make up 90 per cent of the cells in our body, sometimes turn against us to cause cancer.
Another theory is that what scientists used to think was “junk DNA” and makes up 98 per cent of our DNA (only two percent is the kind that actually instructs genes) is not junk at all but a mechanism for causing cancer, among other things.
Lastly, micoRNAs might be the culprit. Until recently scientists thought they didn’t do much, but now they’re starting to think that microRNAs might intercept or block messages from DNA to messenger RNA.
If all of that seems crazy-complicated, check out this pretty awesome video the New York Times created for you.
Of course, cancer ain’t talkin’ so these theories might be totally wrong too. But one thing’s for certain: smoking is still bad. Damn.
Number9
Tuesday, August 16, 2011 at 11:32 AMyea.. BAD ASS!! amirite?
EckyThump
Tuesday, August 16, 2011 at 11:52 AMSo basically they’ve figured out that cancer is more complicated than they thought, but we’re still in the same conundrum we were in before, so nothings really changed? #}
Cancer Researcher
Tuesday, August 16, 2011 at 11:56 AMThe classic Hanahan and Weinberg paper (The Hallmarks of Cancer) has not been proven incorrect by the three (not new) mechanisms provided in this article. The article (if the reporter had read it) pertains to the qualities a cell requires to become malignant, including ignoring anti-apoptotic (death) signals, growing faster, ignoring signals from its neighbours and evading the immune system from killing the crazy cell.
Bacteria, viruses, non-coding RNA, junk DNA and micro-RNA are all things which have already know could start cancer off by STARTING ALL OF THE ABOVE MECHANISM.
The Hanahan and Weinberg paper has not been proven wrong and I urge the writer to actually read the paper prior to committing such horrible crimes against science.
- Cancer Researcher
BennyBoss
Tuesday, August 16, 2011 at 1:11 PMI’m a medical researcher.Non-coding DNA hasn’t been considered “junk” for decades. I could probably dredge up some 1980s textbooks that told you what you’ve seen here. I can’t believe how short popular science publications fall from current research. I can;t believe this drivel was even published.
Jon
Tuesday, August 16, 2011 at 2:43 PMAgreed, I have a PhD in Biotech and this article doesn’t sit well with me at all.
Whilst miR is a relatively new field, non-coding DNA has been the subject of investigation for years and years. It has long been known that these regions contain promotors and various other regulatory elements.
Life persists through the conservation of energy, so nature does not waste it. The fact that non-coding elements comprise such a large percentage of our genomes is enough to flag its importance alone. If these non-coding regions were simply junk they would have been culled from the genome long ago.
As to ‘everything we know about cancer may be wrong’, this is just ludicrous. Whilst the intricacies of the disease still elude us, the fundamental basis is a loss of cell cycle regulation, which when coupled with mutations that prevent normal programmed cell death lead to prolific uncontrolled growth.
Emerging fields such as miR regulation add an additional layer of complexity that we must try to understand, however they don’t completely redefine the fundamentals of the disease and debunk what we’ve learnt so far.
Kieran
Tuesday, August 16, 2011 at 3:02 PM+1 for a Ph.D. in Genetics & Biochem.
+1 agreed.
You can’t assume much from chatter at a congress. As I’ve heard a few profs say, “if it isn’t published, it hasn’t been done”. It does break my heart to hear that.. but I guess peer review is the epitome of scientific discourse. Short cutting that straight from a meeting to a lay magazine isn’t the path to scientific enlightenment.
Gizmodo, you’d be doing your readers a massive favour if you treated these articles as such. Its fine to report them, but just set the right tone first.
Reignbeau
Friday, November 11, 2011 at 1:37 PMThis is way better than a brick & mortar esatbislhment.
EckyThump
Tuesday, August 16, 2011 at 3:03 PMI didn’t understand a single word you two just said,.. but hey, keep up the good work, it’s good to know someone knows what they’re talking about! #}
stevjosco
Tuesday, August 16, 2011 at 1:30 PMCancer has killed millions more innocent people than Al-Qaeda and the Taleban could (hopefully) ever achieve. I believe it’s time the world powers declared war on cancer and really focused it might, and trillions of dollars, on getting rid of this evil menace.
We don’t need any more missiles or flying drone killing machines. Get Northrop Grumman, GE, Lockheed, DARPA, et al to come up with a solution to cancer. I reckon they could do it by the end of this decade.
EckyThump
Tuesday, August 16, 2011 at 2:59 PMEvil menace? I had no idea cancer had a fluffy white cat!! #}
Alex
Tuesday, August 16, 2011 at 4:12 PMI wonder what makes more money. war or healthcare?
olly
Tuesday, August 16, 2011 at 8:23 PMBet they’re both in the top 5 of most profitable industries.
Sam
Tuesday, August 16, 2011 at 8:48 PMWhy cure with a single treatment what you can treat (at much profit) for a period of time, regardless of final outcome.
rox
Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 6:50 PMIs there a connection between B17 and cancer? Should we be eating apple and apricot seeds?