免疫学教学课件-Coming full circle-from endless Complexity to simplicity and back again.pdfVIP

Leading Edge Essay Coming Full Circle—From Endless Complexity to Simplicity and Back Again Robert A. Weinberg1,2,3,* 1Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research 2Ludwig/MIT Center for Molecular Oncology 3MIT Department of Biology Cambridge, MA 02142, USA *Correspondence: weinberg@ /10.1016/j.cell.2014.03.004 Cell has celebrated the powers of reductionist molecular biology and its major successes for four decades. Those who have participated in cancer research during this period have witnessed wild fluctuations from times where endless inexplicable phenomenology reigned supreme to periods of reductionist triumphalism and, in recent years, to a move back to confronting the endless complexity of this disease. In the mid-1970s, when Cell published its been accumulating for more than half a and avian cells? In their minds, only first edition, the mechanisms by which century. E. coli, yeast, and Drosophila genetics cancer started and spread were a Arrogance like this is never appreci- held the promise of yielding solid, irrefut- total mystery. Half a century of cancer ated, and so we tried to keep it under able conclusions. This sniping from all research had generated an enormous wraps. We were aware of the sensitivities sides cemented in my mind the reality body of observations about the behavior of the ruling barons of cancer research that no matter what one does in life, it is of the disease, but there were essentially and tried to be nonconfrontational. We guaranteed to be wrong in someone’s no insights into how the disease begins couched our work in molecular biological eyes. and progresses to its life-threatening terms that were unthreatening for those The molecular cancer st