The Genetic Basis of Cancer; March 1995; Scientific American Magazine; by Cavenee, White; 8 Page(s)

Patients stricken with cancer feel as if they have been invaded by an alien force. Yet malignancies arise from our own tissue. In fact, the weight of evidence today indicates that cancers generally derive from a single cell that is changed dramatically by a series of genetic alterations.

A healthy cell has a well-defined shape and fits neatly within the ordered array of cells surrounding it. It responds to the dictates of its environment, giving rise to daughter cells solely when the balance of stimulatory and inhibitory signals from the outside favors cell division. But the process of replication, or growth, carries the constant hazard of genetic mutations: random changes that can impair the regulatory circuits of a cell. If a single mutation occurs, the newly damaged cell, which may look normal and be slightly less responsive to external messages, may occasionally undergo unscheduled cell division.