  Cancer is viewed as a multistep process whereby a normal cell is transformed
into a cancer cell through the acquisition of mutations. We reduce the
complexities of cancer progression to a simple set of underlying rules that
govern the transformation of normal cells to malignant cells. In doing so, we
derive an ordinary differential equation model that explores how the balance of
angiogenesis, cell death rates, genetic instability, and replication rates give
rise to different kinetics in the development of cancer. The key predictions of
the model are that cancer develops fastest through a particular ordering of
mutations and that mutations in genes that maintain genomic integrity would be
the most deleterious type of mutations to inherit. In addition, we perform a
sensitivity analysis on the parameters included in the model to determine the
probable contribution of each. This paper presents a novel approach to viewing
the genetic basis of cancer from a systems biology perspective and provides the
groundwork for other models that can be directly tied to clinical and molecular
data.
