BioEssays 5/2011

Cover Photograph: Counterpoints in cancer. The somatic mutation theory (SMT, depicted on the right hand side) has long been the accepted model of carcinogenesis. In this model a cell gradually accumulates mutations in genes critical for cell cycle control and apoptosis, for example, which ultimately turn the cell cancerous. This theory is challenged by an alternative model: the tissue organisation fi eld theory (TOFT, represented on the left hand side) posits that cancer is, instead, a tissue‐based disease. This issue of BioEssays features these two radically different stances in a point ↔ counterpoint, attacking and defending the SMT (see pages 332–343 ).