Researchers at The Mount Sinai Medical Center have developed a radical holistic view of health — seeing it as a cooperative state among cells, while they see disease as result of cells at war that fight with each other for domination.
Their unique approach is backed by experimental evidence. The researchers show a network of genes in cells, which includes the powerful tumor suppressor p53, which enforce a cooperative state within cells — rather like the queen bee in a beehive.
Disease or disorder occurs when these enforcer genes are mutated, allowing competition between cells to ensue.
“Both competition and cooperation drive evolution, and we are wired for cooperation all the way down to our genes,” says the study’s senior investigator, Thomas P. Zwaka, MD, PhD, Professor at the Black Family Stem Cell Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.