The current volume represents the fourth over a period of five years in
our series on Advances in the Cellular and Molecular Biology of Breast
Cancer. The first three volumes were entitled Breast Cancer: Cellular
and Molecular Biology, Regulatory Mechanisms in Breast Cancer, and
Genes, Oncogenes, and Hormones, respectively. Throughout this series, we
have tried to take a broad look at cutting-edge topics in basic science
research into breast cancer. This attempt has resulted in a wide range
of subject material, including rodent and human model systems,
oncogenes, suppressor genes, growth factors, hormones, tumor-host
interactions, and determinants of metastases. Since our last volume,
research in breast cancer has continued to proceed at an explosive rate.
We hope the current volume will provide the reader with some of the
excitement felt by the editors and authors as we begin to understand
this all-too-common disease. The first section of this book is devoted
to the basic processes of proli- feration, differentiation, and
malignant progression of breast cancer. T.l. Anderson and W.R. Miller
lead off with a detailed description of controls on proliferation in the
normal human breast and in breast cancer. This chapter strongly
emphasizes pathological aspects. The second chapter, by M.R. Stampfer
and P. Yaswen, presents a corresponding viewpoint through a presentation
of experiments with human mammary epithelial cells in culture. The
second section of the book emphasizes the genetic basis for breast
cancer onset and malignant progression. Chapter 3, by M.-C. King and S.
