Experimental Imitation of Tumour Conditions

Abstract

THE cancer investigator is primarily concerned with the nature and origin of uncontrolled growth in malignant tumours which depends on an aberration of normal cell division. The processes which underlie normal cell division and differentiation, however, are still far from being well understood. Cytology, so long as it remained a descriptive science, made little progress in this direction. But the change which occurred some fifteen years ago, when its methods became analytical and experimental, has by now made possible the interpretation of some growth processes in physico-chemical terms¹—an advance which has in its turn stimulated a greater co-ordination among the different methods of approach to the cancer problem. Especially this advance has confirmed the remarkable uniformity of nuclear behaviour throughout living organisms. Experimental work on widely different organisms can therefore now be used to contribute to our understanding not only of normal but also of abnormal growth.