ArticleBioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology2014
Targeting cancer's weaknesses (not its strengths): Therapeutic strategies suggested by the atavistic model.
Article in BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 38 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
38 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 91 citations in OpenAlex.
- Systemic Alterations of Cancer Cells and Their Boost by Polyploidization: Unicellular Attractor (UCA) Model.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Pooled it
- Cellular Biogenetic Law and Its Distortion by Protein Interactions: A Possible Unified Framework for Cancer Biology and Regenerative Medicine.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Pooled it
- Tracing Genetic Images Formed During Evolution.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
- Cancer as an evolutionary reversal-time for a paradigm shift.Translational breast cancer research : a journal focusing on translational research in breast cancer · 2026Article
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- A modelling framework for cancer ecology and evolution.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2024Article
- Is Cancer Metabolism an Atavism?Cancers · 2024Review
- Disruption of metazoan gene regulatory networks in cancer alters the balance of co-expression between genes of unicellular and multicellular origins.Genome biology · 2024Article
- Germline specific genes increase DNA double-strand break repair and radioresistance in lung adenocarcinoma cells.Cell death & disease · 2024Article
- Reuniting philosophy and science to advance cancer research.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2023Article
- Bio-Hacking Better Health-Leveraging Metabolic Biochemistry to Maximise Healthspan.Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- On the gene expression landscape of cancer.PloS one · 2023Article
- Article
- Polyploidy and Myc Proto-Oncogenes Promote Stress Adaptation via Epigenetic Plasticity and Gene Regulatory Network Rewiring.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Review
- Origin and evolution of animal multicellularity in the light of phylogenomics and cancer genetics.Medical oncology (Northwood, London, England) · 2022Article
- Estimating the number of available states for normal and tumor tissues in gene expression space.Biophysical reports · 2022Article
- Life Entrapped in a Network of Atavistic Attractors: How to Find a Rescue.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Review
- Convergent Usage of Amino Acids in Human Cancers as A Reversed Process of Tissue Development.Genomics, proteomics & bioinformatics · 2022Article
- Growth of Biological Complexity from Prokaryotes to Hominids Reflected in the Human Genome.International journal of molecular sciences · 2021Article
- Mechanisms that allow vaccination against an oncolytic vesicular stomatitis virus-encoded transgene to enhance safety without abrogating oncolysis.Scientific reports · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
In the atavistic model of cancer progression, tumor cell dedifferentiation is interpreted as a reversion to phylogenetically earlier capabilities. The more recently evolved capabilities are compromised first during cancer progression. This suggests a therapeutic strategy for targeting cancer: design challenges to cancer that can only be met by the recently evolved capabilities no longer functional in cancer cells. We describe several examples of this target-the-weakness strategy. Our most detailed example involves the immune system. The absence of adaptive immunity in immunosuppressed tumor environments is an irreversible weakness of cancer that can be exploited by creating a challenge that only the presence of adaptive immunity can meet. This leaves tumor cells more vulnerable than healthy tissue to pathogenic attack. Such a target-the-weakness therapeutic strategy has broad applications, and contrasts with current therapies that target the main strength of cancer: cell proliferation.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.