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“Only 10 percent of people die from primary tumors. The real problem is when it spreads around the body. The problem of metastases.” Arizona State University’s Paul Davies, speaking at the Penn Club in New York. I don’t think we need to cure cancer. In fact, I don’t really think of cancer as a disease as much as an alternative form of living matter. We don’t need to cure it, we just need to manage it for long enough that people die of something else.”
The cosmologist was asked to study cancer by the National Cancer Institute. “When cancer cells spread around the body, this is a physics problem. These cells are microscopic bodies being swept along in this raging torrent. They wriggle around, they latch on to surfaces, they drill their way through. This is the sort of language that physicists and engineers can understand. Cancer research is dominated by genetics and biochemistry. That’s why we have the therapies, genetic and chemotherapy, as the main approaches. I think that we can open up a whole new frontier just by thinking about the problem in a totally different way.
—Steve Mirsky
[The above text is an exact transcript of this podcast.]
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3 Comments
Add CommentWherever a cancerous tumor grows, normal human tissue does not. Eventually even localized tumors produce significant disruptive tissue damage. It true that metastasis multiplies the impact of cancer, but if Paul Davies were suffering from a brain tumor I expect he would have expressed a different opinion. Or perhaps none at all.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBy the way, if I were really serious about looking outside the biology box for cancer solutions I'd suggest materials scientists and engineers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIMO, cosmologists seem to have plenty of unsolved problems of their own, would likely only simulate a solution and have no experience in applied solution implementations.
Jtdwyer, I completely concur. This is comparative to if your arm hurts by raising it then do not raise it. When doctors find a cancers tumor in a woman's breast there are usually two options. However, if a woman carries a genetic marker, a family history of breast cancer the usual procedure is a double mastectomy. This seems to allude the science model suggested by Paul Davies as well.
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