Athena Aktipis

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  Cancer as somatic cheating: Resource acquisition and monopolization in cancer evolution
  Athena Aktipis

  Cancer is a problem of somatic cheating, where cells of the body enhance their fitness at the expense of the organism as a whole. The evolution of multicellularity represents a highly sophisticated form of cooperation and cheater suppression. Each independent evolution of multicellularity required suppressing somatic cheating (i.e., cancer) long enough for the organism to survive and reproduce. Here I provide a review of somatic cheating in cancer like phenomena across the tree of life including the 6 independent branches of complex multicellularity. I focus on forms of cheating that involve resource acquisition and monopolization, including upregulated metabolism and disregulated signaling for limiting resources. I describe model results showing that resource cheating may be central to cancer evolution and progression to malignant disease.