prepared for
Summer Institute
July 22nd - 25th, 2002
Johns Hopkins Medical School Campus
by
Arthur Renkwitz
Douglas Becker
prepared for
Summer Institute
July 22nd - 25th, 2002
Johns Hopkins Medical School Campus
by
Arthur Renkwitz
Douglas Becker
Bernadino Ramazzini (1633-1714) wrote the first full-scale work on occupational health, examining potential hazards in 42 fields. In De morbis artificium (1700) he noted a high rate of breast cancer among nuns. Ramazzini believed the nuns' celibate way of life was the cause. This may have been the first linking of occupation and lifestyle with breast cancer.
Elizabeth Throckmorton (1729) by Nicolas de Largilliere, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Arlisa Mellon Bruce Fund
This Evolution and Cancer Quest will focus on the correlation between evolutionary concepts and the etiology (causes) of cancer. Begin this Quest by reviewing some basic principles concerning cancer. Go now to the Evolution and Cancer Worksheet and complete readings and responses to I and II.
At this point in your Quest it is hoped that you can perceive that cancer is a cellular disorder that can manifest itself in many forms and gives the appearance of being many diseases. It is this idea of perception that we wish to focus on in this Evolution and Cancer Quest.
Diagnosis and treatment of cancer has improved tremendously in just the last few decades, yet some cancers are more intransigent than others and have been extremely difficult to treat. The variation in the treatment modalities also points to differences in these particular cancers' etiology. What is it about them that is different? What is the reason that they occur in specific individuals? Do these individuals do something different from others, or is it their genetics that vary and the cancer is predetermined? These questions are not being completely answered using the more traditional paradigms of cellular research and medicine, so maybe we need to look at the problems in a different manner.
Perception, the mental grasp of objects through the senses, is many times hampered because of the model, or paradigm, one uses to examine problems. The earth was a one time considered to be flat and that model of the planet affected the actions of people because their perceptions were incorrect. History is replete with these false models and the effects that they had on the civilizations that held to them. As matter of fact, testing these paradigms through investigation is possibly the most important things that scientific investigation actually does.
Our perception of the world, and its actions, determines how we react to circumstances and situations. Nothing could be more critical in producing the correct response to an action than having and applying the proper paradigm at the correct moment. This is in essence the purpose of our science. By constantly examining the world using our scientific methods through our paradigms we validate our perceptions. If our paradigm, or model, of the world is incorrect, then we will find that our sensory data is at odds with what we think it means.
For instance, if the world is flat and I travel from a starting point and continue to sail in an approximate straight line, how come I end up back where I started? From what I perceive through my voyage something is wrong about my flat earth paradigm. Once this occurs I can continue to the support the paradigm despite my conflicting sensory data, but I'll have to do it with belief rather than evidence, or I can change or shift my paradigm to fit the evidence. You may find this example of flat earth a bit over-simplfied, but I think it probably makes its point to you. If you use a scientific perspective, then sensory data should support whatever paradigm you hold to when it comes to confronting the problems of the world. When you find that a conflict exists and that data is not in agreement with your model, then it is time to reexamine your paradigm.
Evolutionary Medicine represents such a paradigm shift. The traditional model of cancer is being scrutinized because some sensory data is not explaining causation in some cancers. Just how far this shift will go will be dependent on the alignment of the sensory data with the revised paradigm. The jury is still out on whether this evolutionary model will replace, or add to, our current thinking on cancer's etiology, but it is evident that it is causing a change in our perceptions. Let's examine a specific type of cancer through the evolutionary paradigm and allow you the opportunity to evaluate this perspective yourself.
Dr. Katherine E. Wynne-Edwards of Queen's University in Ontario, Canada has proposed a hypothesis to explain the development of breast cancer in women. Breast Cancer Etiology from a Darwinian Perspective is a summary of a talk given at Berkeley about a year ago. You are going to read and critically analyze the summary to see the evolutionary medicine paradigm applied to breast cancer. Begin your Evolution and Cancer Quest by linking to the Evolution and Cancer Worksheet and examining Dr. Wynne-Edwards' evolutionary hypothesis on the etiology of breast cancer.
Can you now perceive the evolutionary medicine paradigm? Do you think that it can enhance the diagnosis and treatment of cancer by creating alternatives to more traditional views? Analyze these two questions in a class discussion.
Further research can be done on this subject by looking for evolutionary medical explanations for other types of cancers. Search the internet for information explaining the etiology of ovarian, or colon cancer.
Continue your investigation of cancer through a different interactive approach by examining the Tumor Simulation that accompanies and supports this Evolution and Cancer Quest by first working through the Evolution and Ovarian Cancer Quest.
Related Links:
Evolutionary Biology Resources
This is a list of cyberresources from the Internet that deal with interesting issues in Evolutionary Biology. They were assembled to provide supplemental materials for a course in Evolutionary Biology at Saint Anselm College.
A brief overview of: Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine by Randolph Nesse and George Williams, Vintage Books, 1996.
Darwinian Evolutionary Medicine
An editorial from the Southern Medical Journal on Darwinian (Evolutionary) Medicine
Review of Evolutionary Medicine
Lisa Sattenspiel, PhD. defines the field of evolutionary medicine as she reviews the book Evolutionary Medicine, in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
This Website was first created for Science Week 1997, after which it has continued to be devoted to Darwinian Medicine; under constant review and open to your ideas and comments.
Evolution and the Origin of Diseases
A Scientific American article explaining that the principles of evolution by natural selection are finally beginning to inform medicine
Paul Ewald:Infectious Disease and the Evolution of Virulence
The transcript of an interview with Paul Ewald on the PBS Evolution site.
Infectious Disease as an Evolutionary Paradigm
Joshua Lederberg, Sackler Foundation Scholar, Rockefeller University, New York, New York, USAThe basic principles of genetics and evolution apply equally to human hosts and to emerging infections, in which foodborne outbreaks play an important and growing role. However, we are dealing with a very complicated coevolutionary process in which infectious agent outcomes range from mutual annihilation to mutual integration and resynthesis of a new species. In our race against microbial evolution, new molecular biology tools will help us study the past; education and a global public health perspective will help us deal better with the future.
The dictates of evolution virtually demand that the causes of some of humanity's chronic and most baffling "noninfectious" illnesses will turn out to be pathogens -- that is the radical view of a prominent evolutionary biologist, Paul Ewald.
Deadly Evolution is an audio file from Sound Print produced by Loretta Williams and Marjorie Centofanti.A flu suddenly becomes deadly and kills more than 20 million people. Malaria, once easily treated, has become one of the most persistent diseases of our time. Even new viruses such as HIV exhibit variations in the virus's ability to kill. A variety of factors influence the spread and deadliness of disease, but some biologists think a critical influence has been overlooked--evolution. Producers Marjorie Centofanti and Loretta Williams explore the evolution theories that could lead to change in the treatment of infectious disease.
Learn more about the scientists featured in this program: Allen Herre shares a summary of an article on his virulence research, Paul Ewald contributes excerpts from his bibliography, and Phyllis Kanki describes her experiences as an HIV/AIDS researcher in Senegal.
What You Need to Know About Cancer
National Magazine Award winning issue of the Scientific American
The Genetics of Cancer is a resource center designed to help you understand the genetic basis of cancer and interpret new discoveries in the field of cancer genetics. Here you will find both clinical and basic information on cancer, heredity, and the roles that genes can play in the development of various cancers. You can search for a specific topic, step page by page through the material by clicking the "next" button at the bottom of the screen, or just see where the hyperlinks-and your curiosity-take you.
Cells that stimulate the growth of cancer are most vulnerable to chemotherapy early in the course of the disease. This site has the information on ovarian tumor growth and chemotherapeutic treatment. This data will be used to describe and explain the tumor model that will be used in the third presentation in this series.