BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE...

The driver of the metastatic phenomenon is not a gene but is respiratory insufficiency in macrophages or their fusion hybrids. The gene mutations arise as downstream epiphenomena, as I have described in Chapter 10. As the linkage of genomic instability to mitochondrial dysfunction was not discussed in any of the cancer genome studies mentioned above, I can only assume that the investigators were unaware of this linkage. It is unfortunate that so many industrious investigators focus so much attention on the genomic instability of tumors, which is largely a downstream epiphenomenon of the disease. Real progress in the cancer war will be realized only after the cancer field breaks its addiction to the gene theory and recognizes the centrality of mitochondrial damage in the origin and progression of the disease.