Cancer patients sometimes feel like they are being parasitized by a strange bug that robs them of their health and vitality. One cell biologist believes that this feeling is exactly right: cancer actually evolved from a parasitic species. Breast cancer cells that are dividing Cancer is similar to a parasite in that it depends on its host, so medications can work well to treat cancer. And, like a parasite, cancer can grow wherever and however it wants. Also, the chromosomes of cancer are significantly different from their hosts. Therefore, a professor of molecular and cellular biology at the University of California, Berkeley, believes that they are actually a new species. He believes that the existing theory of cancer formation is completely wrong. It is not genetic mutations that lead to uncontrolled cell growth and thus cancer, but rather tens of thousands of genetic alterations that result in significant changes throughout the chromosomes, giving rise to entirely new cells, i.e. cancer cells. The theory that cancer cells are a completely new species was first proposed by Huxley in 1956. However, the prevailing view is still the mutation theory. However, gene therapy based on this theory, which attempts to turn off the genes that cause cancer, still has not made much of a breakthrough.