Taking a broader view of things: towards a transdisciplinary approach to cancer
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.13133/2532-5876/13976Abstract
Cancer is widely considered an abnormality that emerges from within the body and which must be destroyed and defeated. But we still do not know precisely how and why cancer starts, and while a ‘magic bullet’ cure has failed to materialize, those adopting a more pragmatic stance are increasingly arguing that if we cannot eradicate all cancer cells, we should look instead to look towards a ‘stalemate’ and find ways of managing cancer as a chronic disease. This article seeks to extend the reach of research in this field by taking a broader view and working towards a transdisciplinary approach in order to better understand cancer. First, we draw attention to obstacles that hinder progress in formulating new perspectives on cancer. Second, we ask why the genocentric approach to cancer remains dominant. One explanation is the legacy of Cartesian thinking. Third, we consider new ways of conceptualizing cancer so that it is not only a scientific object but also an object of life that has a framed existence within the body as part of a wider process of biological evolution. We draw on two key examples which highlight the importance of adopting a transdisciplinary approach: multi-drug resistance and cancer genomics.
References
Almassalha LM, Bauer GM, Chandler JE, Gladstein S, Szleifer I, Roy HK, and Backman V (2016) The Greater Genomic Landscape: The Heterogeneous Evolution of Cancer. Cancer Res 76(19): 5605-5609.
Barthes R (1973) Mythologies. St Albans, Paladin.
Bourdieu P (1993) The Field of Cultural Production. Cambridge: Polity.
Bourdieu P (2000) Pascalian Meditations. Cambridge, Polity.
Bourdieu P (2004) Science of Science and Reflexivity. Cambridge, Polity
Brown P (1990) The name game: towards a sociology of diagnosis. The Journal of Mind and Behaviour 11(3-4): 385-406.
Carter H, Marty R, Hofree M, Gross AM, Jensen J, Fisch KM, Wu X, DeBoever C, Van Nostrand EL, Song Y, Wheeler E, Kreisberg JF, Lippman SM, Yeo GW, Gutkind JS, and Ideker T (2017) Interaction Landscape of Inherited Polymorphisms with Somatic Events in Cancer. Cancer Discov. 7(4): 410-423.
Dano K (1973) Active outward transport of daunomycin in resistant Ehrlich ascites tumor cells. Biochim Biophys Acta 323: 466-483.
Dawson MA (2017) The cancer epigenome: Concepts, challenges, and therapeutic
opportunities. Science 355(6330): 1147-1152.
Descartes R (1998[1637]) Discourse on Method. Indiana, Hackett Publishing.
Fais S, Venturi G and Gatenby R (2014) Erratum to: Microenvironmental acidosis in carcinogenesis and metastases: New strategies in prevention and therapy. Cancer Metastasis Review 34(1): 165–165.
Foucault M (1973) The Birth of the Clinic: An archeology of medical perception. London: Tavistock.
Fournier V (2000) Boundary work and the (un-)making of the professions. In: Malin N. (ed) Professionalism, Boundaries and the Workplace. London: Routledge, pp. 67-86.
Gatenby R (2012) Perspective: Finding cancer's first principles. Nature 491(7425): S55.
Gatenby RA (2009) A change of strategy in the war on cancer. Nature 459: 508-509.
Gatenby RA, & Brown J (2017) Mutations, evolution and the central role of a self-defined fitness function in the initiation and progression of cancer. BBA - Reviews on Cancer 1867: 162-166.
Gieryn T (1983) Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-Science: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists. American Sociological Review 48(6): 781-795.
Gottesman MM, Ambudkar SV, and Xia D (2009) Structure of a multidrug transporter. Nat Biotechnol 27: 546-547.
Gross S (2009) Experts and ‘knowledge that counts’: A study into the world of brain cancer diagnosis. Social Science & Medicine 69: 1819-1826.
Harguindey et al. (2013) Cariporide and other new and powerful NHE1 inhibitors as potentially selective anticancer drugs. Journal of Translational Medicine 11(1): 282.
Herbert DL, Barnett AG, Clarke P, & Graves N (2013) On the time spent preparing grant proposals: an observational study of Australian researchers. BMJ Open 3(5).
Juliano RL, and Ling V (1976) A surface glycoprotein modulating drug permeability in Chinese hamster ovary cell mutants. Biochim Biophys Acta 455: 152-162.
Kuhn T (2012[1962]) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
Jutel A. (2009) Sociology of Diagnosis: a preliminary review. Sociology of Health and Illness 31(2): 278-299.
Latour B, and Woolgar S (1986) Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts. New Jersey, Princeton University Press.
Macilwain C (2015) Change the cancer conversation. Nature 520(7545): 7-7.
Merleau-Ponty M (1945) Phenomenologie de la Perception. Gallimard, Paris.
Modelska A, Quattrone A, and Re A (2015) Molecular portraits: the evolution of the concept of transcriptome-based cancer signatures. Brief Bioinform 16(6): 1000-7.
Oronsky et al. (2015) The war on cancer: a military perspective. Frontiers in Oncology 4, 387: 1-5.
Roepe PD (2000) What is the precise role of human MDR 1 protein in chemotherapeutic drug resistance? Curr Pharm Des 6: 241-260.
Simmel G (2004[1900]) The Philosophy of Money. London, Routledge.
Sonnenschein C & Soto A (2013) The aging of the 2000 and 2011 Hallmarks of Cancer reviews: A critique. Journal of Biosciences 38(3): 651-663.
Sonnenschein C & Soto A M (2011) The Death of the Cancer Cell. Cancer Research 71(13): 4334-4337.
Sonnenschein C and Soto A (2016) Carinogenesis explained within the context of a theory of organisms. Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology 112: 70-76
Spugnini E et al. (2015) Proton channels and exchangers in cancer. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) – Biomembranes 1848(10): 2715-2726.
Vogelstein B, Papadopoulos N, Velculescu VE, Zhou S, Diaz LA Jr., and Kinzler KW (2013) Cancer genome landscapes. Science 339(6127): 1546-58.
Waclaw B, Bozic I, Pittman ME, Hruban RH, Vogelstein B, and Nowak MA (2015) A spatial model predicts that dispersal and cell turnover limit intratumour heterogeneity. Nature 525(7568): 261-4..
Weber M (1968[1922]) Economy and Society. Berkeley, University of California Press.
Weber M (1946[1918]) Science as a Vocation. In: Gerth HH and Mills CW (eds) From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. London: Routledge, pp. 129-156.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright Agreement with Authors
Before publication, after the acceptance of the manuscript, authors have to sign a Publication Agreement with Organisms. The authors retain all rights to the original work without any restrictions.
License for Published Contents
You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work, and to adapt the work. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
