The Theory of the Evolutionary Role of Hereditary Tumors (Carcino-Evo-Devo): The History and Current State. Part 1. From General Principles to Hypothesis and from Hypothesis to New Concept

The theory of the evolutionary role of hereditary tumors, or carcino-evo-devo theory, may be considered as the next step after A.N. Severtsov’s theory of phylembryogenesis, the theory of evo-devo, and Susumu Ohno’s theory of evolution by gene duplication. The carcino-evo-devo theory pretends to be a unifying biological theory, because it unifies within an integrated consideration three main types of biological development—individual, evolutionary, and neoplastic development. The carcino-evo-devo theory explains a series of unexplained biological phenomena. In the first place, it explains the mechanisms of progressive evolution and biological complexity increase using the concept of relatively unstable transitory forms and autonomous uncontrolled processes. The theory of the evolutionary role of hereditary tumors has formulated several nontrivial predictions in various fields of biology, which have been confirmed in the lab of the author and in other laboratories. The consequences of the carcino-evo-devo theory have implications in medicine and biotechnology. The first part of this article describes the basic principles from which the main hypothesis followed, the progressive developments of the concept, and the first experimental data in support of nontrivial predictions obtained in the laboratory of the author in the period before 2014, when our monograph Evolution by Tumor Neofunctionalization (Kozlov, 2014) was published.