Complementarity and contradiction in cancer research: the role of hierarchies in carcinogenesis
Root-Bernstein, R.S.
Anticancer Research 19(6a): 4915-4918
1999
ISSN/ISBN: 0250-7005 PMID: 10697605 Document Number: 510730
The essays on carcinogenesis in this volume tend to fall into groups according to the level of complexity at which the theories focus. Many investigators focus on events and processes involving genetic mutations. Others, however, identify events or processes at the chromosomal, cellular, tissue, or organsimal level as being of primary importance. While such different approaches to carcinogenesis may, at first, seem to be contradictory, they may be seen to be complementary in light of the general theory of hierarchical organization. Hierarchy theory, which is a development of general systems theory, describes the manner in which organized processes are formed by subunits that have unique properties of their own but which can acquire new properties through their interactions. Hierarchy theory suggests that carcinogenesis can only be understood as a set of interactions between organizational processes at every level from genetic to organismal.