Stanley Shostak
For fifty years, I have studied the evolution of growth’s integration with form. Hydras’ ability to move excess cells into buds was my model for cancer’s ability to support metastasis (e.g., Vegetative reproduction by budding in Hydra: A perspective on tumors. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 20:545–68; 1977; “Hydra and cancer: Immortality and budding,” pp. 275-86 in C.J. Dawe, J.C. Harshbarger, S. Kondo, T. Sugimura, and S. Takayama, eds., Phyletic Approaches to Cancer. Tokyo: Sci. Soc. 1981). I have concentrated on the origins of stem cells (Symbiogenetic origins of cnidarian cnidocysts. Symbiosis, 19:1–29; 1995 [with V. Kolluri]; “Speculation on the Evolution of Stem Cells,” Breast Disease, 29:3–13; 2007–8) and have developed my ideas further in books (Evolution of Death: Why We Are Living Longer. Albany: SUNY Press; 2006; Becoming Immortal: Combining Cloning and Stem-Cell Therapy. Albany: SUNY Press; 2002; Evolution of Sameness and Difference: Perspectives on the Human Genome Project. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1999; Death of Life: The Legacy of Molecular Biology. London: Macmillan, 1998).