July 1, 2003

1 min read

Untangling the Roots of Cancer

Recent evidence challenges long-held theories of how cells turn malignant--and suggests new ways to stop tumors before they spread

By W. Wayt Gibbs

Join Our Community of Science Lovers!

00

Aneuploidy Precedes and Segregates with Chemical Carcinogenesis. Peter Duesberg, Ruhong Li, David Rasnick, Charlotte Rausch, Andreas Willer, Alwin Kraemer, George Yerganian and Ruediger Hehlmann in Cancer Genetics and Cytogenetics, Vol. 119, No. 2, pages 83-93; June 2000.

Chromosome Segregation and Cancer: Cutting through the Mystery. Prasad V. Jallepalli and Cristoph Lengauer in Nature Reviews Cancer, Vol. 1, No. 2, pages 109-117; November 2001.

Rules for Making Human Tumor Cells. William C. Hahn and Robert A. Weinberg in New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 347, No. 20, pages 1593-1603; November 14, 2002.

Multiple Mutations and Cancer. Lawrence A. Loeb, Keith R. Loeb and Jon P. Anderson in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, Vol. 100, No. 3, pages 776-781; February 4, 2003.

W. Wayt Gibbs is a contributing editor for Scientific American based in Seattle. He also works as a scientific editor at Intellectual Ventures.

More by W. Wayt Gibbs
Scientific American Magazine Vol 289 Issue 1This article was originally published with the title “Untangling the Roots of Cancer” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 289 No. 1 ()
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican072003-6BMnQ2PyGvy0wPgkseeJii
View This Issue