A new Scientific Reports paper puts an evolutionary twist on a classic question. Instead of asking why we get cancer, Leonardo Oña of Osnabrück University and Michael Lachmann of the Santa Fe Institute use signaling theory to explore how our bodies have evolved to keep us from getting more cancer.
It isn’t obvious why, when any cancer arises, it doesn’t very quickly learn to take advantage of the body’s own signaling mechanisms for quick growth. After all, unlike an infection, cancers can easily use the body’s own chemical language.