The Axis of Progression of Disease

Starting with genetic or environmental perturbations, disease progression can involve a linear sequence of changes within individual cells. More often, however, a labyrinth of branching consequences emanates from the initial events. How can one repair an entity so fine and so complex that its organization and functions are only partially known? How, given the many redundancies of metabolic pathways, can interventions be effective before the last redundant element has been irreversibly damaged? Since progression ultimately proceeds beyond a point of no return, therapeutic goals must target earlier events. A key goal is therefore to identify early changes of functional importance. Moreover, when several distinct genetic or environmental causes converge on a terminal phenotype, therapeutic strategies that focus on the shared features seem unlikely to be useful – precisely because the shared events lie relatively downstream along the axis of progression. We therefore describe experimental strategies that could lead to identification of early events, both for cancer and for other diseases.