Professor Douglas Hanahan discusses how cancer cells require a source of nutrients and oxygen, which is supplied through new blood vessel growth – the process of angiogenesis, which is critical for almost all cancers.
In 2000, Douglas Hanahan (shown below) and Robert Weinberg published a paper in Cell, "The Hallmarks of Cancer," which identified some organizing principles of cancer cell development.
“As a cell, you need oxygen to breathe, the same way that the organism does. That dividing nest of cells will in some sense suffocate from lack of nutrients and oxygen and from their own waste unless they have a blood supply. It is now clear that induction and new blood vessel growth – the process of angiogenesis – is critical for almost all cancers, some less than others. Perhaps the leukemias and the blood-borne ones are less angiogenesis-dependent, but it may be that all cancers, in some sense, activate the vascular system to help support it.”
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Professor Douglas Hanahan explains that a fundamental property of multi-cellular organisms is the capability to have cells commit suicide or undergo apoptosis, which is a form of programmed cell death.
Professor Douglas Hanahan discusses how cancers kill you, in general, not just because they grow into a large lump, but because they invade into normal tissues and disrupt the functions of those tissues.
Professor Douglas Hanahan explains that not only are there positive signals that tell cells to grow but there are negative signals to stop such proliferation, and loss of the negative growth control signals is a common denominator for many cancers.