S.A. Levine’s scientific contributions

We have chosen to review some of the cancer literature in the context of our thesis on antioxidant adaptation to oxidative stress (Levine and Kidd, 1984), the ubiquity of toxic carcinogens as free radical oxidants in vivo, and the central importance of hypoxia in degenerative disease states (Levine and Kidd, 1985). We suggest that the cancerous cell line is the end result of initial free radical oxidant damage to DNA; its subsequent fixation into the genotype by cellular replication (facilitated by cancer promoter agents), and subsequent clonal selection for an anaerobic malignant cellular lifestyle in vivo. This hypothesis that we have presented regarding the metabolic basis of cancer is meant to be a complete one, in that it attempts to organize many disparate observations into a unified theoretical framework. It has largely been possible because of the power inherent in viewing degenerative diseases from the expanded perspective of antioxidant defenses and free radical biochemistry.