ABSTRACT
Asimple and powerful conceptual paradigm pervades most of the previousdiscussions in this book: cancer is a disease of cells, and the phenotypes of cancer cells can be understood by examining the genes and proteins within them. The origins of this idea are clear, being traceable directly back to bacterial and yeast genetics. These two research specialties thrived because they were well served by the postulate that cell genotype determines all aspects of cell phenotype. Indeed, virtually all the attributes of individual bacterial and yeast cells could be shown to derive directly from the genes that these microorganisms carry in their genomes.
