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Nature 443, 35-36 (7 September 2006) | doi:10.1038/443035a; Published online 6 September 2006

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Cancer biology: Infectious tumour cells

David Dingli1 & Martin A. Nowak1

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Cancer cells are generally viewed as a problem innate to their host, but evidence is mounting that they can evolve to become infectious agents and be transmitted between individuals.

The current view of cancer development is that normal cells are transformed into tumour cells by sequential mutations that activate cancer-promoting 'oncogenes', or inhibit genes that would otherwise suppress tumours, or trigger genetic instabilities. As a consequence, every tumour is the result of a unique evolutionary process as the cancer cells adapt to out-compete their neighbours.

  1. David Dingli and Martin A. Nowak are in the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Department of Mathematics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA. David Dingli is also at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, Minnesota 55905, USA.
    Email: dingli.david@mayo.edu;
    Email: martin_nowak@harvard.edu

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