Complexity Digest 2006.22 - 12.01

May-29-2006

Web Cast :

6th Understanding Complex Systems Symposium

Urbana-Champaign, Il, 06/05/15-18
http://complexity.vub.ac.be/~comdig/06UCS/

Autophagy: Is It Cancer's Friend or Foe?, Science Bookmark and Share

Excerpts: Cells rely on autophagy to recycle their components, and much evidence favors the idea that this "self-eating" suppresses tumor development. But other data suggest that autophagy fosters tumor development and actually protects cancer cells from treatments (...)

(...) autophagy appears to suppress tumor development in animals. This includes demonstrations that some tumor-suppressor genes stimulate autophagy and that certain cancer-causing oncogenes inhibit it. But although such work suggests that boosting autophagy will prevent or treat cancers, "the situation is not so clear," cautions Patrice Codogno of the University of Paris-Sud in France.