The Cheating Cell: How Evolution Helps Us Understand and Treat Cancer

A fundamental and groundbreaking reassessment of how we view and manage cancer

When we think of the forces driving cancer, we dont necessarily think of evolution. But evolution and cancer are closely linked because the historical processes that created life also created cancer. The Cheating Cell delves into this extraordinary relationship, and shows that by understanding cancers evolutionary origins, researchers can come up with more effective, revolutionary treatments.

Athena Aktipis goes back billions of years to explore when unicellular forms became multicellular organisms. Within these bodies of cooperating cells, cheating ones arose, overusing resources and replicating out of control, giving rise to cancer. Aktipis illustrates how evolution has paved the way for cancers ubiquity, and why it will exist as long as multicellular life does. Even so, she argues, this doesnt mean we should give up on treating cancerin fact, evolutionary approaches offer new and promising options for the diseases prevention and treatments that aim at long-term management rather than simple eradication. Looking across speciesfrom sponges and cacti to dogs and elephantswe are discovering new mechanisms of tumor suppression and the many ways that multicellular life-forms have evolved to keep cancer under control. By accepting that cancer is a part of our biological past, present, and futureand that we cannot win a war against evolutiontreatments can become smarter, more strategic, and more humane.

Unifying the latest research from biology, ecology, medicine, and social science, The Cheating Cell challenges us to rethink cancers fundamental nature and our relationship to it.