title: Darwin's selection within the human body.
abstract: It has been widely accepted that Darwin's natural selection plays a basic role in carcinogenesis and some other disease processes, but is not relevant to the normal multicellular life within the human body. The hypothesis proposed here is that selection and other evolutionary mechanisms not only normally or physiologically exist within the body of human beings and other multicellular organisms, but also persist and 'function' throughout the entire life span of the organism, from the embryo development to the aging process. This is based on the concept of cell individuality and the fact that there are a great deal of variations in cell populations, in particular possible existence of somatic genetic variations within the body. To realize the existence of natural selection in the multicellular life and study how it operates within organisms in both physiological and pathological conditions are fundamentally important to our understanding of human biology and medicine.
authors.affiliation: Department of Laboratory Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, Yale-New Haven Hospital, CT 06520, USA.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhao
mesh_terms: D002455:Cell Division; D002470:Cell Survival; D005314:Embryonic and Fetal Development; D005057:Eukaryotic Cells; D006128:Growth; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D012641:Selection, Genetic