Why is there ever anything but cancer?

Every now and then I find something as cool as Michael Levin’s research into bioelectricity and I’m reminded how lucky I am to be alive in a time when science is doing things that make anything feel possible.

The research he and his team are doing at Tufts University is revealing the possibility for humans to control cellular goals at a high level by manipulating the electricity that guides them, meaning we’d be able to do things like regrow limbs on demand, override genetic birth defects, and render cancer harmless.

In an appearance on Lex Fridman’s podcast (youtube.com), he’s asked how their research can help with treating/suppressing cancer. He starts by saying:

“I think asking why there’s cancer is the wrong question. I think the right question is… Why is there ever anything but cancer?”

This is the start of an insanely interesting explanation of how cells communicate, how the border between the self and the outside world is defined, and a new mental model for understanding how and why cancer cells behave the way they do.

The cells in our bodies are connected together to form a tightly-knit electrical network. While they are a part of this network, they are completely unable to distinguish between themselves and the other cells in the network. They communicate so intimitately that instead of being many separate selves, they become one larger self.

I can best understand this by imagining what it would be like to plug my brain into someone else’s brain so that I wouldn’t be able to distinguish between the thoughts that came from my brain and the thoughts that came from theirs. If I can’t distinguish between their origin, then all thoughts would seem to be mine. I’d stop being two selves and become one self made up of two brains.

Anyway — it’s this intimate communication which allows cells to form a single self across a network of cells and then work towards larger goals, like keeping us alive.

When individual cells convert to cancer cells, the first thing they do is close off the channel they use to communicate with the network of surrounding cells. Now that they are no longer part of the collective self, they are able to distinguish between themselves and the surrounding cells; the rest of the body becomes outside environment to them.

Cancer cells then go on to do what all cells would do without the goals of the larger self, multiply and migrate to where conditions are favourable.

“A lot of people model cancer cells as being more selfish. They’re not more selfish, they’re equally selfish, it’s just that their self is smaller.”

Here’s the coolest part.

Through their research, they’ve worked out a way to physically force the cancer cells to stay connected to the larger network. Meaning that although they stay as cancer cells genetically, they remain a part of the larger self and continue to work towards the goal of keeping the body alive, just like normal cells would.

Wild.