Chromosomal chaos and cancer

The theory that certain mutations in key human genes are at the root of all cancers has dominated research for the past 30 years. Yet despite all the attempts of investigators to demonstrate that a handful of such oncogenes alone can transform normal cells into malignant ones, none have succeeded. But in every known instance of cancer, individual genes may well contain mutations, but entire chromosomes, which carry thousands of genes, are also severely scrambled- duplicated, broken, structurally rearranged or missing entirely. Growing evidence suggests that this chaos on the chromosomal level is not just a side effect of malignancy,as the prevailing model holds, but the direct cause and driving force of cancer.