Hallmarks of Cancer

These are the hallmarks of cancer.

1. Increased activity of oncogenes.
2. Decreased activity of tumor suppressor genes.
3. Defect in apoptosis mechanism.
4. Uncontrolled cell proliferation (like due to Alternate Lengthening of Telomere etc.)
5. Growth of blood vessels - Angeogenesis (drugs like Avastin target this).
6. Tumor invasion and metastasis. 

Will the Water Flow Into the Garden?

Standing on a small hill

I see falls, rivers and lakes,

like the continuous flow of logic

that we see in the formal sciences

On the other side of the hill

I see flowers and beautiful flora -

the grandeur of the biological world

that leaves me with a question,

will the water flow into the garden?

Book Recommendation

Just finished reading this Pulitzer prize winning book - The Emperor of All Maladies. This is a biography about the dreaded disease cancer. Siddhartha Mukherjee is just amazing in his flow. For one continuous week, got hooked to it. 

Major criticism with this book:
Of late, epigenetic phenomena such as CpG island methylation has been implicated in cancer, especially in brain tumors. Chromatin remodeling and mutations in histones (for instance, H3.3 point mutations in pediatric glioma) are being reported. Although, some of these are current discoveries, the role of epigenetics in cancer was thought about at least 3-4 years back. Siddhartha who traces cancer biography till June 2010 has not mentioned a word about these findings. Agreed that cancer is a genetic disease, but the role of these phenomena cannot be undermined. 

Pseudorandom Numbers and Pseudoreal Theories.

There was something that was very interesting I wanted to record. I was thinking about the nature of science blah, blah that I used to think often when walking to work down the streets of Manhattan. It is about randomness that we have in this world and the probabilistic methods to explain it.

John von Neumann cautioned us, "Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random digits is, of course, in a state of sin." True randomness is determined by nature however generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance. All the randomness that we produce are truly pseudorandom but they are quite powerful in answering many questions.

Similarly, when we use mathematical methods to explain nature (especially probabilistic methods, like the quantum mechanics formulation in terms of L2 theory), we are using a deterministic framework to explain randomness. Probability has a strong axiomatic and hence deterministic basis (remember Kolmogorov's axiomatic construction of probability space). Therefore, any explanation of physical phenomena through probabilistic methods is only pseudoreal. In other words, true explanation to any physical phenomena should be based on axioms that are truly "random" in nature. Having said this, pseudoreal theories are just as powerful as pseudorandom numbers in explaining this world.

Einstein was right after all when he said "God does not play dice".

Book Recommendation

One of the good books that I have come across, especially for people getting introduced to cancer genomics.

By author Fred Bunz

GTP Cyclohydrolase 1