A mathematical formula was used by Bert Vogelstein and Cristian Tomasetti that would explain the origination of cancer. They would use the mathematics of evolution and apply it to someone’s cells. This is how they explained the why or why not you get cancer: In an organ, determine the number of cells. Take these cells and find the percentage of how many of them are long-lived stem cells. Next, calculate the amount of times those cell divide. As each cells divides, the daughter cell has a possibility of obtaining a cancer-causing mutation.
From Vogelstein and Tomasetti’s findings, the tissues that are the most vulnerable to cancer are the ones with the greatest number of stem cell division. After all of this was done, Tomasetti decided to compare them to other cancer statistics. He found that his assumption elucidated a majority of all cancers. Math works pretty well with explaining cancer.
"The Simple Math That Explains Why You May (or May Not) Get Cancer." Science. 2015. Web. 22 Apr. 2016. <http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/01/simple-math-explains-why-you-may-or-may-not-get-cancer>.
Rachael Johnson