Why am I passionate about this?
I’ve long been fascinated by how life unfolds from a single fertilized egg cell containing just one set of DNA, whether it’s a human, mouse, frog, worm, or anything else. While studying for my PhD in the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, which combines brings together researchers working on development and cancer, and spending twelve years in science communication at Cancer Research UK, the world’s largest cancer research charity, I came to see cancer and development as two sides of the same coin: one process unfolding healthy life as egg becomes embryo, and the other ultimately bringing disease and death as a single cell grows into a deadly tumor.
Kat's book list on understanding why we haven’t cured cancer yet
Why did Kat love this book?
Written for a more academic audience than the other books on this list, although still highly readable, I’d recommend Adaptive Oncogenesis for anyone wanting to go deeper into the underlying evolutionary principles that explain why we get cancer when we do. James explores how the disease is fundamentally hardwired into our human biology, how the processes of evolution shape how cancer starts, grows, and spreads through the body, and new ideas for more effective approaches to treatment.
1 author picked Adaptive Oncogenesis as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
Popular understanding holds that genetic changes create cancer. James DeGregori uses evolutionary principles to propose a new way of thinking about cancer's occurrence. Cancer is as much a disease of evolution as it is of mutation, one in which mutated cells outcompete healthy cells in the ecosystem of the body's tissues. His theory ties cancer's progression, or lack thereof, to evolved strategies to maximize reproductive success.
Through natural selection, humans evolved genetic programs to maintain bodily health for as long as necessary to increase the odds of passing on our genes-but not much longer. These mechanisms engender a tissue environment…