Evolutionary Applications, an open-access journal edited by Louis Bernatchez, has just published a special issue on cancer. This is a milestone for evolutionary medicine, and perhaps for cancer research as well. The special issue, edited by Frederic Thomas, Michael Hochberg, Athena Aktipis, Carlo Maley and Ursula Hibner, offers 14 articles. The first and last articles are broad reviews. The rest are on topics ranging from etiology, to tumor ecology, and new strategies for chemotherapy. Together, they make it vividly clear that malignancies are products of somatic evolution in individual bodies that develop, or do not, because of how natural selection shaped traits that increase vulnerability, and capacities for resistance, in rapidly changing environments. The Evolution and Medicine Review will feature several articles in coming days. In the meanwhile, see the Table of Contents below, with links to the full articles.
Applying ecological and evolutionary theory to cancer: a long and winding road(pages 1–10)
Frédéric Thomas, Daniel Fisher, Philippe Fort, Jean-Pierre Marie, Simon Daoust, Benjamin Roche, Christoph Grunau, Céline Cosseau, Guillaume Mitta, Stephen Baghdiguian, François Rousset, Patrice Lassus, Eric Assenat, Damien Grégoire, Dorothée Missé, Alexander Lorz, Frédérique Billy, William Vainchenker, François Delhommeau, Serge Koscielny, Raphael Itzykson, Ruoping Tang, Fanny Fava, Annabelle Ballesta, Thomas Lepoutre, Liliana Krasinska, Vjekoslav Dulic, Peggy Raynaud, Philippe Blache, Corinne Quittau-Prevostel, Emmanuel Vignal, Hélène Trauchessec, Benoit Perthame, Jean Clairambault, Vitali Volpert, Eric Solary, Urszula Hibner and Michael E. Hochberg
The real war on cancer: the evolutionary dynamics of cancer suppression (pages 11–19)
Leonard Nunney
Modelling the evolution of genetic instability during tumour progression (pages 20–33)
Ruchira S. Datta, Alice Gutteridge, Charles Swanton, Carlo C. Maley and Trevor A. Graham
The effect of one additional driver mutation on tumor progression (pages 34–45)
Johannes G. Reiter, Ivana Bozic, Benjamin Allen, Krishnendu Chatterjee and Martin A. Nowak
Riparian ecosystems in human cancers (pages 46–53)
Khalid O. Alfarouk, Muntaser E. Ibrahim, Robert A. Gatenby and Joel S. Brown
Cancer as a moving target: understanding the composition and rebound growth kinetics of recurrent tumors (pages 54–69)
Jasmine Foo, Kevin Leder and Shannon M. Mumenthaler
Toward a general evolutionary theory of oncogenesis (pages 70–81)
Paul W. Ewald and Holly A. Swain Ewald
From forest and agro-ecosystems to the microecosystems of the human body: what can landscape ecology tell us about tumor growth, metastasis, and treatment options? (pages 82–91)
Simon P. Daoust, Lenore Fahrig, Amanda E. Martin and Frédéric Thomas
An evolutionary explanation for the presence of cancer nonstem cells in neoplasms(pages 92–101)
Kathleen Sprouffske, C. Athena Aktipis, Jerald P. Radich, Martin Carroll, Aurora M. Nedelcu and Carlo C. Maley
Cancer stem cells as ‘units of selection’ (pages 102–108)
Mel Greaves
Peto’s paradox revisited: theoretical evolutionary dynamics of cancer in wild populations (pages 109–116)
Benjamin Roche, Kathleen Sprouffske, Hassan Hbid, Dorothée Missé and Frédéric Thomas
Do evolutionary life-history trade-offs influence prostate cancer risk? a review of population variation in testosterone levels and prostate cancer disparities (pages 117–133)
Louis Calistro Alvarado
Preventive Evolutionary Medicine of Cancers (pages 134–143)
Michael E. Hochberg, Frédéric Thomas, Eric Assenat and Urszula Hibner
Evolutionary foundations for cancer biology (pages 144–159)
C. Athena Aktipis and Randolph M. Nesse
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