_Do White Blood Cells Make Cancer Deadly?_
(http://amsciadmin.eresources.com/track/trackurl.aspx?q=SynP9lejxPWeMYgWYOLBpDIP\
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cmTtxryf/sGxsw==)
On a cold, gray Saturday morning at Yale University in February 1993,
instead of just reading his laboratory's article in a cancer journal and
scanning past the rest--cancer is a profoundly wide field, and there is
much to read--cancer biologist John Pawelek made time to finish the
entire issue.
That simple decision changed the course of his research, toward a
controversial explanation for the deadliest aspect of the
disease--namely, why it spreads.
The issue contained a letter from three Czech doctors asking whether the
fusion of tumor cells and white blood cells could cause cancers to
spread, or metastasize. At the time, Pawelek was also reading a book by
evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis, who pioneered the idea that life
on earth was revolutionized by ancient cells engulfing one another and
fusing together, forming hybrids that had better chances at survival.