Cancer is such a ruthless adversary because it behaves as if it has its own fiendishly cunning agenda.

I recognize in thieves, traitors and murderers, in the ruthless and the cunning, a deep beauty - a sunken beauty.

It will be in the convergence of evolutionary biology, developmental biology and cancer biology that the answer to cancer will lie. Nor will this confluence be a one-way street.

Although the elusive 'cure' may be a distant dream, understanding the true nature of cancer will enable it to be better controlled and less menacing.

In the frantic search for an elusive 'cure,' few researchers stand back and ask a very basic question: why does cancer exist? What is its place in the grand story of life?

Astonishingly, in spite of decades of research, there is no agreed theory of cancer, no explanation for why, inside almost all healthy cells, there lurks a highly efficient cancer subroutine that can be activated by a variety of agents - radiation, chemicals, inflammation and infection.