Article
What Cancer Networks Reveal About the Hidden Logic of Cell Identity
A new PLOS Complex Systems study uses monotone Boolean models to ask a deep question: which cell states are most naturally supported by a gene regulatory network? The answer may help explain why cancer-linked networks often settle into stable identities, including epithelial and mesenchymal states tied to metastasis.
Cells are often described as biological machines, but that image is too rigid. A better metaphor may be a decision system. Every cell is constantly receiving signals, weighing internal conditions, and settling into patterns of behavior that determine what it...
