Molecular biology of cancer

Researchers in Basic Science and Human Biology try to determine why cells turn cancerous. Research on normal molecular and cellular processes in model organisms and the changes that occur in cancer cells has led to the following understanding of cancer.

• Normal cell differentiation is altered in cancer cells.
  
  
• Cancer cells have lost ability to control cell proliferation and therefore divide out of control.
  
  
• Cancer cells evolve clonally from a single cell as the result of specific mutations (changes in DNA sequence) that affect basic cell processes.
  
  
• An accumulation of mutational events lead to cancer.
  
  
• Cancer cells have high levels of genomic instability (rearrangements in chromosomes).
  
  
• Familial (inherited) predispositions to cancer are the result of inheriting one of the mutations leading to cancer.

	Cell Differentiation
	Mutations Affecting Cellular Processes
	Accumulation of Mutations in Cancer
	Cell Proliferation
	Genomic Instability
	Familial Cancers