Teleological thinking (i.e. the existence of goals and purposes) and agential thinking (i.e. an entity making rational decisions) are still common in biology. In physics, for example, no one thinks of the Sun's purpose or gravity's goal. However, in biology, we use agential words like ‘manipulate,’ ‘function,’ ‘role,’ and so on, as if a protein or cell has a goal or purpose. These views constrain our understanding of biology, including cancer.

Tissues are basic compartments in our body. Although the initiation of a tissue developmental process has been studied, how the process ends is unknown. The state that appears as an end could be an equilibrated state. Epithelial-mesenchymal interaction (EMI) drives tissue morphogenesis. Through this interaction, the formation of the basal membrane underneath the epithelium is initiated, which physically separates epithelial and mesenchymal cells, leading to a stable equilibrated state that appears to be the end goal. However, the EMI is revoked when the physical barrier is compromised. A wound healing always has an end because it reaches back to the stable equilibrated state. In analogy, a scratch on my new car will never disappear, while a scratch on my skin heals.

Over a century ago, Virchow saw cancer as a non-healing wound. The question is why this wound does not heal. Inflammation is an alerting system that individual cells have. When a cell senses a danger, it alerts its neighbours. The first cell type that responds to the alert is tissue residential macrophages (TRMs). Depending on the amplitude of inflammation, TRMs recruit helpers from circulation or deal with it alone to restore the original condition. If TRMs can clear it, then they remodel the basal membrane to initiate EMI that restores the stable equilibrated state. If the inflammatory cell cannot be cleared, remodelling will continue. This would be the non-healing wound.

I will challenge the current dogmatic view of cancer.