Saturday, September 27, 2008

Neoplasms: Short excerpt from Preface

As I've noted yesterday, my book Neoplasms: principles of development and diversity was published last week.

The full table of contents is available. As indicated yesterday, the book is divided into three parts: tumor speciation, tumor classification, and tumor eradication. By tackling these three major areas, we can start answering long-held questions of tumor biology.

In the book's Preface, I list some of the questions addressed in the text. Here's an excerpt:

What intrinsic cellular properties are common to all cancers?

Are there properties of neoplasms that are not found in normal cells?

How can we stop the progression of a normal cell into a cancer cell?

How can we kill cancer cells without harming normal cells?

Can we reverse the cancer process and transform cancer cells into normal cells?

How have studies on rare tumors led to new cures for common tumors?

What are the inherited tumors, and how do they differ from non-inherited tumors?

What is the relationship between inherited cancers and inherited malformations?

Why do chemical carcinogens need to be activated by cells in our bodies before they can causecancer?

Are there some carcinogens that cause only benign tumors and others that cause only malignant tumors?

What carcinogens are responsible for the majority of tumors that occur in man?

Can tumors occur spontaneously, without any external cause?

Is a single gene alteration sufficient to cause a cancer?

What is the smallest dose of a carcinogen sufficient to produce a cancer?

Are animal tumors good models for human tumors?

Are childhood tumors fundamentally different from tumors that occur in adults?

Why aren’t the same characteristic genetic changes seen in all tumors of a specific
type?

Why do tumors that arise from the ectoderm and endoderm (embryonic layers) account for more than 95% of the tumor burden of humans?

What is a stem cell tumor?

How do germ cell tumors differ from all other tumors of humans?

Why are there different kinds of tumors and how many kinds of tumor are there?

How might a tumor classification be used to guide the development of new chemotherapeutic agents?

Is cancer prevention more important than cancer treatment?

How can our understanding of precancers lead to the eradication of all human cancers?

In the next few days, I will continue to include short excerpts from Neoplasms in my blogs.

-Jules Berman

Key words: tumors, tumour, neoplasms, neoplasia, carcinogenesis, tumor development, cancer research, neoplastic development, precancer preneoplasia, preneoplastic

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