Viral and Nonviral Oncogene Theories of Cancer by Correa, Paulo N. & Correa, Alexandra N. Aurora Biophysics Research Institute J Biophys Hematol Oncol, Volume 1, Issue 4 (April 2010),  pp. 1-79 Article ID:   JBHO01-04-01 View Full Text:  PDF The Journal of Biophysics, Hematology and Oncology is an open-review journal. If you wish to contribute a review of this article, please send your review to   editor.JBHO@aetherometry.com .

ABSTRACT Rather than writing a review with a limited scope, we attempted to survey the span of medical and molecular biology research in the field of oncology during the last six decades: from the early breakthroughs in viral oncology and the novel notions of virus and viral cancer (onc) genes; to the role of DNA cancer viruses and C retroviruses in experimental carcinogenesis; through the discovery of cellular oncogenes and the biology of growth factors; to the expansion of the concept of oncogene and its types; and, finally, to the realization that cancer is a multiplicity of different disorders that appear to arise through nonviral auto-oncogenic processes involving adaptive changes and epigenetic responses to cancer-promoting pressures in the external and internal environment of the organism. Throughout, we have searched for the integration of an oncogenic vector with different degrees of transformation, seeking the commonality of proliferative disorders, somatic cancer and leukemia. We re-examine what separates transformation, benign and malignant, from differentiation, and how their reversible switch deploys graded responses related to states of hypersensitivity to, or independence from, key physiological growth factors.