What is Cancer?

The Nobel Prize Winner John Michael Bishop has called cancer a "disease of the genes."


Cancer begins in individual cells, where it is triggered by defective physiological cell processes which we now know are
genetically programmed. These processes, all of which represent extremely complex regulatory networks, are: cell division,
programmed cell death, reaction to growth factors, neovascularization (formation of new blood vessels), cell migration and
metastasis. Errors in these processes lead step by step to changes which transform a healthy cell into a cancer cell.

cancer cellsIn many cases proteins are involved which act as enzymes or signal transmitters in healthy
cells but are overactive in cancer cells. The pharmaceutical industry has already developed
substances – as a result of worldwide basic research – which neutralize these faulty
enzymes and signal transmitters. Today several types of cancer can be cured by treat-
ment with anti-cancer drugs; in other cases the available drugs result in a marked
improvement in the patient's quality of life and life expectancy.

Owing to the complexity of the falsely programmed regulatory networks and the large
number of potentially affected cells – skin cells, liver cells, intestinal cells, etc. – scientists
now recognize more than one hundred different diseases which are all subsumed under
the term "cancer." We now know that 90 percent of neoplasms – or new cell growths –
classified as malignant carcinoma have their origins in epithelial cell layers, i.e. in outer and inner tissue surfaces which
are in contact with the environment. The remaining ten percent of malignant diseases are classed as either sarcoma,
a type of cancer originating in bone, cartilage, muscle or connective tissue; leukemia, a malignancy of the hematopoietic
(blood-forming) cells; or lymphoma, a type of cancer resulting from an abnormal development of the immune system.

In the future basic biomedical research will be aimed at gaining a more precise understanding of the genetic, molecular
and cellular processes leading to the individual cancer cell. The results of these research projects will make it possible to:

  • discover cancer at a much earlier stage than is possible today
  • combat cancer more effectively at the molecular and cellular levels
  • win the war against cancer