title: [Hypotheses for the genesis of cancer: a historical perspective].
abstract: The explanation of cancer has always been tightly related to the state of knowledge in biology, and its transformations. The present situation is not different. New techniques, such as deep sequencing, are rapidly moving our vision of cancer in an impredictable way. Systems biology, epigenetics, and the study of stem cells are generating new hypotheses on cancer and its evolution. New roles for aleatory events in the genesis of cancer have been proposed. In the traditional opposition between holism and reductionism, organisms and molecules, an intermediary level, the cancer cell, seems to be the most appropriate to study oncogenesis.
authors.affiliation: Centre Cavaillès, République des savoirs, USR 3608, École normale supérieure, 46, rue d'Ulm, 75005 Paris, France.
authors.forename: Michel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Morange
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000266:history*; D002471:Cell Transformation, Neoplastic / Q000473:pathology; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000209:etiology* / Q000266:history; D010686:Philosophy, Medical / Q000266:history; D011336:Probability