Proteomic strategies in breast cancer

Cancer is intimately connected with the intrinsic processes of ageing at several important levels. Firstly, incidence rates for the great majority of cancers rise steeply with advancing age. Secondly, there is an important overlap between the roles of molecular damage accumulation in ageing and cancer. Thirdly, there is a powerful inter-species correlation between longevity, rate of DNA repair and lifetime cancer risk. Fourthly, cancer and ageing are to some extent opposites in that ageing is associated with finite cell replication whereas cancer is associated with cell immortalisation. As evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky observed: “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”. Cancer is a condition in which the role of natural selection needs to be understood not only in terms of the proximate mechanisms – how abnormal cells undergo intense cellular selection to proliferate and metastasise – but also in terms of the legacy of the processes that have shaped the evolution of ageing. IS2