Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited. Glossary Co-option Reuse of existing genetic components, metabolic reactions, or signaling modules in diverse biological systems, such as tumors, for instance, discharging in the evolution of patterns of dysregulated transcription factors. Evolvability The capacity of an organism or a biological system to generate new heritable phenotypes. Therapeutical

modularly induced evolutionary steps advance this definition: Modularity may allow retrospectively established spaces for primarily none-heritable evolutionary developments, if modular events (therapy) are implemented. Modularity In the present context, modularity is a formal pragmatic communicative systems concept, describing the degree TEW-7197 PHA-848125 mouse and specificity to which systems objects (cells, pathways, etc.) may be communicatively separated in a virtual continuum and

recombined and rededicated to alter the validity and denotation of communication processes in the tumor. Modular communication (therapies) The function is to configure the coherence between the validity and denotation of communication processes. Modular therapies may supplement prepositional aspects of communication, i.e. the presence of the tumor’s living world by normative aspects, namely by therapy-derived yes or no statements (‘know that’). Risk-absorbing background knowledge This knowledge constitutes the validity of informative intercellular processes, which is the prerequisite for therapeutic success. Background knowledge about the tumor’s living world is subjected to other conditions of scientific comprehension: Intentional ways fail to describe risk-absorbing PI3K inhibitor knowledge, in which context-dependent knowledge about commonly administered reductionist therapy approaches is rooted.

After this second objectifying step (physicians as operators of tumor systems), the network of the holistic communicative activities turns out to be the medium through which the tumor’s living world is OICR-9429 purchase mirrored and generated. Tumor’s living world The living world comprises the tumor’s holistic communication processes, which we rely on in every therapy. The living world of morphologically defined tumor cell systems creates the term opposite to those idealizations, which originally constitute scientific (intentional) knowledge. The living world is uncovered by redeeming the validity of communicative tumor processes by implementing the modular knowledge of cellular and external environments (for instance for therapeutic requirements). Only with experimental or therapeutic experiences (modular therapies) is the tumor’s living world separated into categories of knowledge, for example, into modular systems.