title: Looking ahead: algebraic thinking about genetics, cell kinetics and cancer.
abstract: The cancer cell phenotype is modelled as a set of necessary genetic changes containing from one to three changes for any particular set of developmentally identical cells (tissue). This analysis suggests that a person in whose tissue an early genetic change occurs during ontogeny will perforce have a markedly higher number of cells in single sectors containing the necessary set of genetic changes. It is hypothesized that this numerical expectation is a dominant factor in determining the probability that a particular person will develop a tumour in a particular tissue.
authors.affiliation: Center for Environmental Health Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.
authors.forename: W G
authors.initials: WG
authors.lastname: Thilly
mesh_terms: D002455:Cell Division; D008433:Mathematics; D008954:Models, Biological; D009154:Mutation; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000209:etiology*