Cell signaling is the result of physiologic events in a functioning cell and its immediate environment. Signaling is represented by gene expression, DNA modifications, changes in metabolism, cell membrane, cell stress and damage, reactions to pathogens and other events, lipids, peptides, enzymes, proteases, and others.

There exist two pathways for medicine to proceed. To continue the current path, modifying or inhibiting cell signaling to obstruct cell functions, or to see cell signaling as a window to disease physiology at the cell level. Address the physiology, the biological functioning of diseased cells and utilize signaling to precisely understand the disease state at any time point.

An abundance of recent research as clearly demonstrated that the signaling pathways of chronic diseases are
dramatically similar. At the center of these pathways, are the agents of chronic inflammation and dysfunctional wound healing. There is also conclusive evidence that all chronic diseases and cancer share common characteristics. They also share the discovery of a physical substrate on
the diseased cell’s surface that makes chronic diseases “chronic.”

We have been presented with the opportunity to cure previously incurable diseases. We now have the ability to clearly declare what is the definition of “cure.” No longer should we accept the low expectations of “cancer control” or insignificant, “increased survival.”

The only question is how established medicine will integrate this new-found knowledge into current practice. The track record has been mediocre at best. Chemotherapy drugs have received accelerated FDA approval to be administered to cancer patients. Results of these drugs have brought suffering and very high cost of care with little improvement in overall survival or disease-specific survival. Medical researchers readily declare that the cellular signaling environment is complex, redundant and adaptive. Yet, medicine continues to research, develop, approve and deliver drugs designed to inhibit or obstruct a specific signaling protein, only to be undermined by the disease through alternate signaling pathways. What was originally feared has been proven many times and continues today: these drugs inevitably create a more aggressive, more deadly cancer, resistant to the the chemotherapy drug originally administered.